Press Release
November 15, 2010

CCT PROGRAM SHOULD BE STREAMLINED--ANGARA

In a recent interview, Senator Edgardo J. Angara called on other government agencies to help and coordinate with the Department of Social Welfare and Development's (DSWD) in carrying out the massive Conditional Cash Transfer Program (CCT).

"The goal of the CCT is to keep the child in school, and to be able to keep him in school, he must be healthy. That's why we're giving incentives to the family. Therefore, DepEd (Department of Education) and DOH (Department of Health) must be involved as well. If DSWD is the sole handler, the public perceives it as a simple charity program, which is not what CCT is all about," he said.

"We need DepEd, because they have people even in the smallest far flung barangays. The DOH is necessary to conduct the vaccinations and the checkups of the children. The cooperation of all three agencies is essential to this program," he added.

Angara, vice-chair of the Senate Committee on Finance, also clarified his earlier statements about slashing the proposed budget of the DSWD.

"If we go through with the original 21 billion for the CCT, that's almost 1.3 billion a month. That's a lot of money and a lot of warm bodies needed to implement this kind of large-scale program. I have a lot of respect for our social workers, and I believe in their abilities, but I'm worried that the DSWD lacks the sheer number of employees to do all the legwork. This is why I suggested reducing the CCT budget from 21 to 15 billion, so that we might be able to realign the extra 6 billion into other projects," he said.

According to Angara, the restructuring of the general scheme of the proposed CCT program should be the first priority.

"Before we delve into the details of implementation, we should streamline our approach to this program. Dealing with such a large amount of money, we should be careful-we must maintain credibility and transparency at all times. Having a wasteful and non-sustainable program is worse than having none at all," he asserted.

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