A Senate committee urged yesterday the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) to adopt its own model in helping the poor through the controversial Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) instead of following a World Bank-prescribed model and borrowing P20 billion from that international banking institution for that program that started n 2009.
Sen. Cynthia A. Villar, chairperson of the Senate social justice, welfare and rural development committee, questioned the past DSWD leaderships for following a World Bank prescription that compelled the Philippine government to set aside a substantial portion of its 2016 P62 billion CCT appropriation for health of its four million beneficiaries.
The Department of Health (DoH), through the PhilHealth, that oozes with funds can take care of this sector.
The DoH has R150 billion in additional funds from Sin Tax collections, she pointed out.
The DSWD should focus its attention on education and livelihood to reduce the country’s high poverty level and should not mix health in the CCT program because DSWD will be judged on how it addresses the country’s grinding poverty, Villar said. (Mario Casayuran)