The over 75,000 families newly enrolled beneficiaries of Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) in Central Visayas will undergo a guided monitoring process to ensure proper use of their cash grant, a social welfare official said on Monday. Shalaine Marie Lucero, regional director of the Department of Social Welfare and Development, said the new 4Ps recipients were required to take an “oath of commitment” to comply with the program’s conditions such as sending their children to school and attending development sessions as well as to spend their cash grant for education, health and nutrition. Lucero said they registered a total of 75,446 new 4Ps beneficiaries under Set 12 after a rigorous process of evaluating the 90,242 potential beneficiaries in the region. Cebu province has the highest number of new beneficiaries with 33,859 (44.87 percent), followed by Negros Oriental with 26,742 (35.44 percent), Bohol with 14,083 (18.66 percent), and Siquijor with 762 (1 percent). Currently, there are 315,505 4Ps households in the Central Visayas region. The number represents 7.17 percent of the 4.4 million target nationwide. According to Lucero, reports on improper cash grant spending will be evaluated before they can decide on possible actions against the beneficiary subject of a complaint. ‘This requires behavior modification. We need to guide them on the proper use of the cash grant. LGUs play an important role in guiding our 4Ps beneficiaries so that they can graduate from their current status through this conditional cash transfer program of the government,’ Lucero told the Philippine News Agency in an interview

Source: Philippines News Agency