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Leveling up DSWD’s 4Ps: Sen. Imee Marcos presides over the hybrid briefing of Finance Subcommittee I Wednesday, October 12, 2022, on the proposed budget of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) and attached agencies for 2023.The proposed DSWD budget amounts to P194.63 billion under the National Expenditure Program (NEP) 2023. Marcos proposed that the agency should level up its Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program or "4Ps" which is the agency’s top program in terms of allocation. The senator said that under the law, 4Ps is a poverty reduction strategy that provides grants to extremely poor households to improve their health, nutrition and education. She said the agency should study revising the law’s implementing rules and regulation (IRR) to concentrate on nutrition because of high prices of food. On education, Marcos said it is time to expand this field from high school level to vocational-technical education to prepare and up-skill the beneficiaries. “These are the things that we have to look at in the IRR – still compliant with the law,” Marcos said, citing the Mexican experience that level up the conditional cash transfer to include social and productive inclusion as an exit strategy. (Bibo Nueva España/Senate PRIB)