About 2.1 million poor families in remote areas of the country are now beneficiaries of the government’s conditional cash transfer (CCT) program.
Under the 2011 national budget, the government has allotted P21 billion for the implementation of the CCT program that would benefit about 2.1 million poor families until December 2011.
The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) and state-owned Land Bank of the Philippines (LBP) tapped Globe Telecom, thru its G-Xchange Inc. (GXI), to disburse cash grants, especially in hard-to-reach municipalities of the country.
G-Xchange Inc. president Paolo Baltao said it has started disbursing cash grants with only three areas during the pilot run in January of this year, and in a span of six months they were able to disburse about P2 billion cash grants in almost 300 hard-to-reach municipalities nationwide.
“We’ve had over one million transactions for CCT disbursement alone, reaching remote areas like islands on the fringe of the Philippine territory where there are no banks or quasi-financial establishments and limited infrastructure,” he said.
GXI is the mobile commerce subsidiary of Globe, which operates mobile commerce brand GCASH and cash pick-up service GCASH REMIT.
Baltao said that with the efficient and secure disbursement of the CCT cash grants, “we are able to demonstrate that merging technology, business, and social responsibility in a program can be a potent force to help the government distribute vital social services to be more far reaching and benefit the poorest of the country.”
Parisha Taradji, anti-poverty program director of the DSWD, said the government would continue to tap GCASH REMIT to disburse CCT cash transfer to beneficiaries in hardest to reach, remote areas in the country.
The CCT program, formally known as the “Pantawid Pampamilyang Pilipino Program” (4Ps), is a poverty reduction program of the Aquino administration that provides cash assistance to the country’s poorest families in exchange for complying with conditions that promote human development like attending school, regular health check-ups, and getting vaccinations.
According to a study published by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), CCT programs are increasingly perceived as an effective tool for poverty alleviation.
Due to the successful implementation of the CCT program in addressing poverty in the country, the government will be increasing its funding allocation for the program to P23 billion for 2012 from the P21 billion this year.
Presidential Spokesman Edwin Lacierda earlier said that with the proposed increase in funding allocation by 2012, the number of CCT program beneficiaries was also expected to boost up to three million poor Filipino people. (PNA)
