The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) announced Monday that over 400,000 waitlisted households have been verified as eligible for the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps), pending available slots left by families graduating from the program.
The reassessment initiative, led by DSWD Secretary Rex Gatchalian in July 2023, aimed to identify beneficiaries no longer in need of assistance according to the “Listahanan 3” database. This effort targeted beneficiaries classified as “non-poor” and sought to make room for families on the waitlist.
According to 4Ps National Program Director Gemma Gabuya, the reassessment process also reinstated over 700,000 beneficiaries whose circumstances had shifted, rendering them eligible once again for program support.
“Nagbalik na ‘yung mga dati na non-poor at naging subsistence o survival kaya hindi agad nakapasok [‘yung waitlisted], because nakita nga ng management, particularly ni Secretary Rex, na hindi pa lahat [ng graduates] handa na talagang mag-exit,” Gabuya explained in a statement.
Under Republic Act 11310, also known as the 4Ps Law, households must exit the program when the last monitored child in the family reaches 19 years old. Currently, the DSWD is overseeing the program graduation of households that no longer have eligible children or whose children are ineligible for educational grants at the elementary, high school, or senior high school levels.
A comprehensive validation process is also underway to assess the eligibility of more than one million households flagged as potential 4Ps beneficiaries.
“These are the pool of poor households which were extracted from the Listahanan 3 or the National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction,” Gabuya noted.
Currently, over four million households across the country are enrolled in the 4Ps program.
To qualify, families must meet specific criteria: they must be classified as poor or near-poor, willing to comply with the program’s conditions, and must have children aged 0 to 18 years or a pregnant family member at the time of registration.
Established in 2008 and institutionalized under RA 11310 in 2019, the 4Ps program seeks to reduce poverty by investing in human capital. It provides conditional cash transfers to support children’s health, nutrition, and education, with each household receiving ₱750 per month for health expenses.
Educational support includes ₱300 for elementary school children, ₱500 for junior high students, and ₱700 for senior high students, capped at three children per household for 10 months per school year.
Additionally, beneficiaries receive a monthly rice subsidy of ₱600 for active and compliant households.
