Conditional Cash Transfer Program in the Philippines: Is It Reaching the Extremely Poor?

The Philippine government shows its serious effort to combat poverty through the continuing expansion of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps), the Philippines` version of the conditional cash transfer (CCT) program modeled by Latin American countries. The 4Ps by far is the most comprehensive and also controversial poverty reduction program of the Philippine government because of the huge amount of money the government is spending for this. The expansion of the program since 2008 necessitated the government to secure loans from the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank amounting to a total of $805 million to finance the program. To date, there are already 2.3 million households in 80 provinces who are enrolled in the program. The DSWD targets a total of 3 million household beneficiaries by end of 2012. This paper aims to discuss the salient features of the 4Ps and the reviews or assessments done so far, and to expound the issues surrounding the targeting scheme and pace of expansion of the program.