Department of Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol slammed the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) during his visit to South Cotabato on Wednesday, explaining that this program only teaches Filipinos how to become unproductive.
Piñol his speech during the sidelines of distribution of Post-harvest facilities in the town of Tupi, couldn’t stop himself from criticizing 4Ps, insisting that the system on this program must be changed.
He claimed that most of the beneficiaries of 4Ps are only in their house, not working and just waiting for the money that they would receive from the government.
The worst part is the money that some of the beneficiaries receive are only being used to fund their gambling expenses, according to the agriculture secretary.
He said that the reforms that he proposed would change the system of 4Ps and its fund would only be used to give livelihood programs to its beneficiaries.
Piñol believed that this reform would avoid its beneficiaries to become lazy as they need to work to earn profit from the funds that they received from 4Ps.
He said that livelihood program such as poultry and farming would be the best alternative from the current conditional cash transfer (CCT) scheme of the government to fight poverty.
“Instead of giving it out in the forms of dole-out every month, why don’t we start a livelihood program using that money so that the 4Ps beneficiaries would be contributors to agriculture production instead of them not being able to participate right now,” Piñol said.
Piñol is planning to ask the congress and senate to help him to implement this reform because he believes that the 70-B funds of 4Ps are only wasted because of the current system.
Despite some lawmakers opposed Piñol’s proposal, the agriculture secretary is ready to debate with them to prove that the current system of 4Ps is a failure.