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ABSTRACT: In its effort to demonstrate an unwavering commitment to eradicate the adverse influence of poverty, the Conditional
Cash Transfer (CCT) program, otherwise known as the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps), distributes conditional cash
handouts to the underprivileged households of the country. While numerous studies on the efficacy and effects of the 4Ps program
have been undertaken, none of them have looked into the recent case of some household beneficiaries graduating from the program.
Through this study, the gap between the real and ideal poverty graduation in the case of a graduated 4Ps household beneficiary was
explored. The researchers utilized a single case study as a research design and interviewed one (1) graduate 4Ps household
beneficiary of Tacloban City who was purposely selected. Furthermore, the data gathered were comprehensively examined through
thematic content analysis. As a result, the definition of poverty graduation may vary depending on the household’s level of self-
sufficiency at the time of program exit. Thus, this finding was drawn based on the participant’s identified challenges encountered,
including high dependency on lifeline connections, insufficient financial support, and decadency of financial capability, as well as
the employed coping mechanisms namely supplementary capital investment to business and shoestring budgeting.
KEYWORDS: Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT), Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps), Poverty Graduation, Household
Beneficiary, Coping Mechanisms
I. INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study
“The State shall promote a just and dynamic social order that will ensure the prosperity and independence of the nation and free the
people from poverty through policies that provide adequate social services, promote full employment, a rising standard of living, and
an improved quality of life for all”, as vividly stated in the Section 9 of the 1987 Philippine Constitution, Article II Declaration of
Principles and State Policies.
As a testament to deliver its mandate, there are numerous programs of poverty mitigation measures initiated by the Philippine
government. One of which is the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT), otherwise known as the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program
popularly recognized as 4Ps.
Since its launching in the year 2008, there were about ninety percent (90%) or three million eight hundred twenty thousand and
twelve (3,820,012) out of the 4.2 million active household beneficiaries of this government’s poverty reduction strategy who are still
within and below the poverty threshold yet may possibly be promoted as graduates from the program, according to a report by the
Commission on Audit (COA).
Historically, this 4Ps is an adopted and replicated program patterned from the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) schemes in which
its origin antedates to the 1990s in the Latin American countries. From the Bolsa Escola of Brazil (later known as Bolsa Familia in
2003), the Progresa of Mexico (as renamed into Oportunidades in 2001), and the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program of the
Philippines, collectively known as 4Ps that was early introduced in the year 2008 (Cuizon, A., & Cuizon, C., 2022). These countries
may be geographically and politically separated, but shares a mutual goal in breaking the poverty cycle across generations by
cultivating positive changes in the attitudes and practices of every household and allowing them to value education, nutrition and
health—as core components to upholding their welfare and a better future for all of the beneficiaries.
Through the years upon its implementation, the program has catered to a maximum of 4.2 million active household beneficiaries
who remained recipients of this government subsidy. From its program implementation in 2008, during President Gloria Macapagal
Arroyo, there were about five hundred sixty-nine thousand and seven (569,007) registered household beneficiaries. Succeeding
administrations continued and enhanced this program most especially during the presidential term of Benigno Simeon C. Aquino III
and Rodrigo R. Duterte, the number of household beneficiaries of the program have continually increased by 600 percent—that is
Theoretical Framework
The theoretical underpinning for this study is the Poverty Graduation Approach that was formulated, and later on introduced by
the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC), one of the world’s largest international nongovernmental development
organizations, to help every household graduate through education in terms of minimizing financial expenditures, marketing skills
training for employment, transfer of asset, free access to financial, social, and legal services, and constant educative monitoring
(Poverty Alleviation Coalition, 2015). In addition, it is also called as cash plus programming, economic inclusion, or social protection
for employment that advocates economic opportunities and social inclusion empowering the poor and vulnerable sectors to achieve
sustainable livelihoods, and in turn, becoming self-reliant or self-sufficient (Asian Development Bank, 2022).
Hence, the implementation of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program or popularly known as 4Ps is a vivid representation of
the Poverty Graduation Approach, precisely because the government continuously find ways to elevate every household above the
poverty line in a matter of not only providing cash grants to poor households but also sources of sustainable livelihoods in the pursuit
of sufficing and meeting their basic needs. And thus, enabling them to live productive and fulfilling lives while forging strong social,
Definition of Terms
The following significant terms in the study are further defined in both operational and conceptual manner:
Household Beneficiaries – As cited in Law Insider, it means a household that is classified under a low-income stratum, as primarily
determined by the local municipalities. In this study, it pertains to the poorest of the poor households that are most responsible,
qualified, and authorized to receive the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT).
Ideal Poverty Graduation – In this study, it posits the ideal perspectives of a graduated 4Ps household beneficiary concerning the
eventual exit from the program.
Poverty Graduation – It is an approach developed by the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) to help every
household graduate from poverty (Poverty Alleviation Coalition, 2015). Meanwhile, in this study, it describes a process of slowly
rising above the poverty threshold.
Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) – As defined by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), it is
the government’s strategy to reduce poverty to extremely poor households. On the other hand, in this study, the 4Ps is a social
protection policy that the researchers aimed to investigate.
Real Poverty Graduation – As utilized in the study, it is defined as following the government’s instituted policies as clearly stated
through the implementing rules and regulations of Republic Act (RA) No. 11310 or otherwise known as “An Act Institutionalizing
the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program”.
Delisting
On the 19th day of July, the delisting of the household beneficiaries of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) was
confirmed by the Malacañang itself (Flores, 2022), and that spurred different reactions, comments, and questions from the general
public considering the inappropriateness of time and situation in the delisting; being in the verge of a pandemic and economic crises,
for example.
To better serve the Filipinos who are truly in need of financial aid, the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD),
which was formerly headed by Secretary Erwin Tulfo has been staunch in eliminating "unqualified" and "ineligible" beneficiaries
from the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program or 4Ps (Vera-Ruiz, 2022). Having been said, the department has previously planned
to delist 1.3 million household beneficiaries, but perhaps because of the negative comments they received from the other lawmakers
and the general public, the DSWD resorted to scaling down the 4Ps purge to 850,000 household beneficiaries (Andrade, 2022).
The prime motive behind the evaluation of the list of the 4Ps recipients is to ascertain those who should still deserve in the program.
According to Savadogo et al. (2015), the households are considered poor if their income and consumption fall short from the
predetermined poverty cut-off. For that reason, poverty can then best be defined in between these two aspects: income and
consumption. Hence, by simply exploring the gap between the real and ideal poverty graduation in a case of a graduated household
beneficiary of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) including challenges encountered and the employed coping
mechanisms to it, the researchers, the target audience, and the future researchers would be able to determine whether or not the 4Ps
graduates had become self-sufficient, and thus successfully exited in the poverty line.
III. METHODOLOGY
Research Design
The type of research design employed in this study is qualitative. A qualitative study is a method of investigation that seeks to
comprehend a social and human problem by creating a complex, comprehensive picture structured out of words and reporting specific
Research Locale
The research locale of this study is situated in a newly resided relocation site of displaced informal settlers in the northern portion
of Tacloban City. Moreover, it was convenient for the researchers because one of them resides in the area, and that gave due advantage
to familiarity in the social environment.
Ethical Considerations
To maintain the ethical standards in the completion of this research, the researchers had adopted the principles of ethical
considerations developed by Saunders, M., Lewis, P. & Thornhill, A. (2012). In regard to the participant’s involvement, voluntary
participation is important and it is valued in such a way that the participant has all the rights to withdraw her involvement at any stage
of the study, only if she wishes to do so. However, prior to the conduct of the study, the researchers had presented, first and foremost,
to the participant the informed consent agreement with stipulated information about the assurances and implications of participating
in the study, as well as, giving her the fullest autonomy to decide whether or not to partake in it. Also, the use of offensive,
discriminatory, or any other unacceptable language at the time of the interview process was highly discouraged, so as to disclose the
personal information of the single research participant. Therefore, privacy and confidentiality had been treated with utmost
importance.
Moreover, to practice ethical sensitivity and moral responsibility, the researchers had appropriately acknowledged the works used
in this study that were intellectually owned by some of the credible authors. In the whole process of this research, the researchers
practiced the highest level of objectivity in the discussion and analysis of data gathered in order to avoid eliciting any forms of biases
that may mislead information. For that reason, neither any deceptions nor exaggerations had been inflicted throughout the process of
Research Reflexivity
In this part, the researchers' role was presented to prevent issues of manipulation among the research subject that may largely
affect the research process and its outcomes (Haynes, 2012). In the midway of the year 2022, while the country faces a pandemic
and poverty-stricken crisis, the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) speed up the delisting or graduation (as
otherwise termed by the government) of the household beneficiaries of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (Ronda, 2022).
Through this study, the researchers were able to provide a good platform to a graduated 4Ps household beneficiary to get to know her
point of views such as the sentiments concerning her graduation from the program, their household’s experienced challenges thereafter
program graduation, and their applied coping mechanisms to it. Furthermore, one of the researchers has a strong connection to the
study because he is a member of a graduating 4Ps household beneficiary who is awaiting certification to be formally recognized as a
program graduate. Because of that, to avoid eliciting biases and prejudices, the researchers employed bracketing to distance
themselves from the participating household beneficiary, and therefore removed all the subjectivity on it throughout the collection,
analysis, and interpretation of data with impartiality and integrity. Other than that, the researchers were also responsible for verifying,
checking, and reviewing more data sources for transparency and accuracy, so that the obtained data would be highly reliable.
SUMMARY
The following findings of the study were summarized and condensed according to the statement of the problem:
1. The definition of real and ideal poverty graduation in the context of a 4Ps graduate may vary depending on their household’s
level of self-sufficiency at the time of program exit, which eventually causes this gap between the former and the latter.
2. The Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) is highly regarded as an additive financial reinforcement that revitalizes the
household’s financial capacity to provide their basic necessities. Therefore, program graduation may significantly engender
challenges, including the household’s insufficient financial support resulting in its high dependency on lifeline connections
and decadency of financial capability.
3. The participating 4Ps graduate employed supplementary capital investment to business and a strict shoestring budgeting
scheme as coping mechanisms to counter the challenges after program graduation.
CONCLUSIONS
The present study aimed to explore the gap between real and ideal poverty graduation, the challenges, and the employed coping
mechanism of a 4Ps household graduate. Exploring this gap would certainly aid in coming up with better and justifiable amendments
to the existing 4Ps implementing rules and regulations as stipulated in the R.A. No. 11310 (An Act Institutionalizing the Pantawid
Pamilyang Pilipino Program or 4Ps).
Based on the results and findings of the study, these are the following conclusions that have been made:
1. The graduate of Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) defined poverty graduation differently from that of the
government-instituted policy to the expected experiential outcomes of the household beneficiary—resulting in the
development of these two terms in this single case study: (1) real poverty graduation (former) and (2) ideal poverty graduation
(latter). Based on the analysis of acquired data, there were drawn sub-themes that truly represent the personal interpretation
RECOMMENDATIONS
After a rigorous and meticulous process of analyzing the findings of the study, the following recommendations were drawn:
1. The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) must be more vigilant and exercise due diligence in the
selection and monitoring of the household beneficiaries. In delivering their mandates, they should act impartially,
professionally, and free of any political interference or maneuvering that would jeopardize their projects and programs.
2. The government should continually support and enhance the implementation of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program
(4Ps), so long as traces of poverty incidence remain high among every household beneficiary.
3. The government must incessantly pursue and develop the program through an increase of budgetary allotment and open for
probable partnership with major private sectors, philanthropists, charitable organizations, and civil society groups. Through
such arrangement, the accumulation of greater resources becomes possible that could cater more deserving destitute families
in the country. This consequently aligned the primary United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals—No Poverty.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The researchers would like to acknowledge and extend their heart-warming gratitude to the following people who contributed to
the success of this research endeavor:
To Prof. Ryan G. Destura, the Director of the University’s Admission Office and Research Professor, for consistently bestowing
his expertise in terms of responding to some of the research-related concerns, and for allocating adequate time to the completion of
this study.
To Prof. Ramil A. Purog, a faculty member of the University’s Secondary Education Department, Research Adviser, and co-
author of this study, for his unwavering professional guidance, and never-ending support throughout the conduct of this study.
To the highly valued participant, for generously devoting her valuable time and effort to share her views, opinions, and relevant
experiences that significantly contributed in this study.
To our respective parents, for their boundless patience and utmost understanding, and for giving us a wide spectrum of assistance:
physical, emotional, and financial support.
Above all, all praises and glory are offered to the Father Almighty who has always been there along the way—showering wisdom
and good flow of thoughts, as well as, for the courage to finish this academic pursuit.
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