MANILA, Jan. 14 -- The National Economic and Development Authority has projected that the sustained reduction in the country's poverty incidence in terms of population will be between 18 percent to 20 percent for 2016, from 26.3 percent in 2009, President Benigno S. Aquino III said on Wednesday.
This reduction in the number of poor households in the country is due to the implementation of pro-poor programs, such as the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) program, the President said during a conference on sustaining the gains of the CCT, held at the Asian Development Bank headquarters in Mandaluyong City.
He noted that according to the preliminary result of the latest round of assessments conducted by the National Household Targeting System, almost 1.55 million CCT families, or more than 7.7 million Filipinos, have been lifted out of poverty.
He said he believes the CCT is an effective tool to fight poverty and the administration has proven that.
"With enough political will, the right and prudent concentration of resources and funds, and the proper implementation of a solution borne out of our correct identification of problem, massive transformation can take place,” he said.
One of the key expansions to the CCT program involved covering households with children in high school, based on the finding that those who graduate from high school earn 40 percent more than those who merely attained some elementary education.
Just last year, the President said, the first batch of the 4th year high school student beneficiaries of CCT graduated. Of the 333,673 graduates, more than 13,400 finished with honors and various awards.
Students who choose to enroll in technical-vocational programs under the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) will be further enabled to go beyond being casual workers without security, he added.
President Aquino pointed out that if a student joins the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry, where a monthly salary of P18,000 is already considered at the low end, he will earn P234,000 in a year. If he is given the maximum tax deduction, his annual income tax will be at P7,900, the President said, adding that for TESDA’s Training for Work Scholarship Program, the government invests about P7,155 for every scholar.
"In the first year of employment alone, the investment of government would be paid back in full, with profit,” he said.
The Chief Executive further noted that 10.18 million children are benefitting from the CCT, 1.9 million of whom are in high school.
Citing a May 2015 study of the Philippine Institute for Development Studies and the UNICEF, he said that despite the increase in population, the number of out-of-school youth decreased from 2.9 million in 2008 to 1.2 million in 2013.
The government has raised the CCT's budget allocation from P10 billion in 2010 to P62 billion in 2015, allowing it to increase the number of beneficiaries from 786,000 poor households in 2010 to nearly 4.4 million poor households and homeless families in five years.
For 2016, the Aquino government has further increased the program’s budget allocation to P62.7 billion to cover 4.6 million households, including those who have graduated from extreme poverty and are considered "near poor”, or those who are at risk of sliding back to an impoverished state with just one catastrophic disease or natural disaster. (PCOO/PND)
