Butuan City – Some 1, 500 potential households of Butuan City will become beneficiaries of the government’s Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps). On September 17, 2010 a simultaneous 4Ps registration was conducted in barangay Obrero and Doongan Butuan City.

The launching and registration was conducted simultaneously in their respective barangay gym. Butuan Mayor Ferdinand Amante, Jr. together with other barangay officials of the 2 barangays were also present and showed their support by providing manpower to speed up the registration process.  Other 4Ps identified barangays of Butuan City are Anticala, Bonbon, and Manila de Bugabos.

The potential beneficiaries were required to bring (2) 2×2 and (1) 1×1 I.D pictures, marriage contract or birth certificate.

Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) is one of the flagship programs of the government in poverty reduction. The program provides cash grants to its beneficiaries with a maximum of 1, 400.00 per month or 15, 000.00 annually. To avail the cash grants, beneficiaries should comply the following conditions: (1) Pregnant women must avail the pre and post natal check up and be attended by a skilled/ trained health professional; (2) Parents/guardians must attend responsible parenthood sessions, mother’s classes and parent effectiveness seminar; (3) children 0-5 years old must receive regular health checkups and vaccines; (4)children aged 3-5 years old must attend day acre/ pre-school classes at least 85% of the time; (5) children aged 6-14 years old must enroll in elementary or high school and attend classes at least 85% of the time.

4Ps beneficiaries were selected through the selection of poorest provinces based on the 2006 Family Income and Expenditure Survey (FIES); and the poorest municipalities were selected from the identified poorest provinces based on the Small Area Estimates (SEA) and FIES where saturation surveys of households were conducted. The last process in selection of the beneficiaries is the computerized selection based ranking system using the Proxy-Means Test developed for the program. The Proxy-Means Test assess the socio-economic characteristics such as ownership of assets/appliances; type of housing unit; level of educational attainment of household heads and access to water and sanitation facilities.

The program also aims to empower women by identifying the mothers as the grantee, because mothers are usually the one who budgets for the family.

4Ps in Caraga started in 2008 with 2 pre-pilot municipalities, Sibagat and Esperanza, Agusan del Sur. At present it covers 54 municipalities with more than 80,000 household beneficiaries. # # # (Social Marketing Unit).