The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) is set to accommodate new beneficiaries for its Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) by September this year.

Director Gemma Gabuya, head of the 4Ps National Program Management Office (NPMO), said about 200,000 household beneficiaries, with non-eligible children, will automatically exit from the program.

She said the exit of the households is in line with Republic Act 11310 or the 4Ps Law, which states that “a qualified household beneficiary shall be deemed to exit from the program when the last monitored child in the household turns 19 years old.

Gabuya said the exit schedule in September would coincide with the end of the school year to ensure that the monitored children would be able to finish their current grade level.

“To ensure that the exiting households will not slide back to poverty, the DSWD is working with other government agencies and local government units to provide livelihood opportunities and other interventions that will help meet the needs of the families,” she said during the DSWD Media Forum at the department’s New Press Center in Batasan Hills, Quezon City on Thursday.

“The new program beneficiaries will be extracted from the current list of waitlisted beneficiaries assessed by the Listahanan 3 or the National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction (NHTS-PR).”

Gabuya called for more support services to household beneficiaries who are expected to exit from the program this year to ensure that the gains to improve their well-being would be sustained.

“Actually, ang ine-expect sa amin by 2024, 1.2 million ang kailangang mag-exit. So, ‘yun ang challenge ko ngayon (we expect that by 2024, 1.2 million households need to exit. So, that is my challenge now). We really need to put together all efforts. Kailangan talagang may sasalo na programa (There should be programs to support them), I mean the scholarship and the livelihood,” she said.

The DSWD, she said, is strengthening its partnership with the National Advisory Council composed of national agencies and local government units that could help the 1.2 million exiting beneficiaries.

The 4Ps program manager reiterated that the support programs are important to ensure that the gains made on the poor beneficiaries would not go to waste.

At present, LGUs provide various support services to households who have already graduated from the 4Ps. These include livelihood, educational, and cash assistance, as well as skills training.

The 4Ps is the national poverty reduction strategy and a human capital investment program of the Philippine government that provides conditional cash transfer to improve the health, nutrition, and education of children aged 0-18. (PNA)