Sales of alcoholic beverage and so-called “sin products” have increased in Bayawan City and Sta. Catalina town after the Department of Social Welfare and Development handed out financial assistance to recipients under the Pantawid Pampamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) last year.
Data gathered by the office of Rep. Henry Pryde Teves revealed that 45,000 cases of alcoholic drinks were sold in Bayawan City and Sta. Catalina last December alone.
In a speech during the 4Ps ceremonial cash-payout held last week at the Zamboanguita Municipal Gymnasium, Teves said that this is a 50 percent increase in the expected volume of alcohol consumption.
He explained that money was supposed to be scarce because sugarcane, the major crop in the area, was not yet due for harvest. It also rained continuously during that month, he said.
“Normally around 30,000 cases are sold in these areas every December. We were expecting the sales of liquor last December to be low but we were surprised because even cigarette sales went up also,” said Teves.
The Congressman attributed the increase in alcohol and cigarette sales to the money distributed by the government under the 4Ps that same month.
The Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) is a poverty reduction strategy that provides grants to extremely poor households to improve their health, nutrition and education particularly of children aged 0-14. It aims to provide monetary aid to poor beneficiaries with the hope that these investments in human capital would lessen the great financial divide among the haves and the have nots.
It is the Filipino version of the World Bank-funded Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) Program where poor families receive cash provided their children regularly goes to public school, visits the health center for regular medical checkups and treatments.
Conceiving mothers also receive financial grants provided they regularly undergo medical checkups and standard pregnancy treatments.
A household-beneficiary can receive as much as P1,400 monthly for a maximum of five years, which includes P500 per month for nutrition and health expenses and P300 per month per child, with a maximum of 3 children per household, for educational expenses.
The beneficiaries are selected through a Proxy Means Test. This test considers the ownership of assets, type of housing, education of the household head, livelihood of the family and access to water and sanitation facilities.
Zamboanguita Mayor Kit Marc Adanza also made a similar observation during that same occasion. He said that fathers of family-beneficiaries end up spending the money in billiard games or drinking sprees.
“I have heard some fathers of the family-beneficiaries say that they will no longer work in their farms because they are receiving money from 4Ps. You should understand that this money is not a dole-out. The money is given so your children can go to school,” Adanza told the crowd of 1,058 beneficiaries inside the packed gymnasium, mostly composed of women and mothers.
Teves stressed that conditions for the fathers should also be imposed under 4Ps “so that we can prevent this problem from happening again.”
Teves said the current conditions outlined by 4Ps for its family-beneficiaries are only directed at the mothers and the children.
“There should definitely be conditions for fathers to follow also as they are the head of the family,” Teves said.
Alarmed by Teves’ revelation, the DSWD has intensified their family development sessions and community assemblies with 2Ps family beneficiaries throughout Central Visayas to prevent beneficiaries from misusing their state-provided cash aid. (Rachelle Nessia/PIA)