Officials of the Department of Social Welfare & Development in Region 7 have reiterated that politicians cannot meddle in the Philippine government’s primary pro-poor agenda, the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program, (4Ps).
This was highlighted during the DWSD-7 Convergence Strategy Orientation for the local media Monday at a hotel here in Dumaguete.
Asela Bella Tse, provincial link of the Pantawid Pamilya in Negros Oriental, said politics does not have a hand in the program that seeks to alleviate the lives of the poorest families in the country through social assistance and social development.
She said Negros Oriental is on its sixth year of implementation of the 4Ps, also known as Conditional Cash Transfer, and is one of the first provinces to implement it in the country.
Tse said no elective officials are involved in the identification of the recipient households, despite widespread reports of politicians pushing for the inclusion of their constituents in the list of beneficiaries.
The DSWD has its own targeting system where the poorest of the poor are being evaluated, interviewed, educated, and made to go through a process for enrolment in it, she added.
Nobody can de-list any beneficiary from the program except for one, who either decides to drop out or is removed from the list due to non-compliance with requirements, Tse said.
Leah Tagalo Quintana, DSWD Region 7 information officer, said the agency will launch the Anti-Epal campaign months before the 2016 elections.
Epal, in Filipino slang, usually refers to a person who inappropriately presents himself in a situation or butts into a situation.
The colloquial term epal must have come from papel, mapapel or pumapapel, which connotes someone who always wants to be in the scene to be given attention or to grab public recognition for something that he/she had nothing to do with.
Epal also means someone who intervenes with the affairs of others or impedes with the concerns of a group unrelated to him/her, with the intent of becoming the center of attention.
The Anti-Epal campaign of the DSWD aims to “insulate” Pantawid Pamilya and its beneficiaries from candidates who want to utilize them in the elections.
They have received reports of politicians dipping their fingers in the Pantawid program.
Another round of household assessments will be held this year for the addition of poor families to the program.
DSWD data show that Negros Oriental has a poverty incidence of 28.8 percent, higher than the national poverty incidence of 22.3 percent.
