The program in question is the five billion-peso Ahon Pamilyang Pilipino (Rise Filipino Family) Program that the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) launched recently. Under this program, a household is entitled to P6,000 a year or P500 per month cash grant for health and nutrition needs provided that children are brought to the health center for check-ups and vaccinations. The program also offers an education cash grant through which P3, 000 for 10 months or P300 monthly per child is provided to parents who make their children attend school at least 85% of the time. The program covers a maximum of three children per household. Therefore, a household with three qualified children shall have a subsidy of P15, 000 annually provided that the conditions are met.

Caritas Manila, the social services and development ministry of the Archdiocese of Manila, slammed the program saying it is "anti-poor, and gives the poor no dignity." It called the subsidy a dole out, which would only teach the poor to be lazy and added "the government should instead employ the poor as street sweepers, canal sanitizers and garbage collectors to teach them the value of work." It further said the government should require the poor to "attend seminars on livelihood, skills training, and micro-entrepreneurship and to undergo family planning seminars and values formation."

Yes, the program is a dole out and dole out certainly breeds laziness, declared voices from the civil society. This program is, in fact, a short-term solution to the poverty problem of the country, they said. The Philippine Daily Inquirer agreed, too, and, by way of an editorial, added its voice to the chorus, citing the aphorism about how it is better to teach a man how to fish than to give him a fish and just feed him for a day.

Reading these, I was struck by the thought that it is such a mystery that the feudal age has been over for hundreds of years but many people still think the poor are lazy slobs who need to get a job in order to improve their lot. I wondered if there do exist scientific studies with laboratory mice that have shown so far that direct monetary assistance or cash transfers to the vulnerable poor in times of rising food prices is just plain harmful to them because the poor are indeed lazy slobs who do not know the value of work and who, in fact, need to be lobotomized in order to alter their genetic predisposition to be lazy and therefore alter their fortune. I feel so sorry for any poor laboratory mice that might have been poked or worse, slaughtered, for the purpose of making some people experience highly satisfying feelings of superiority.

Seriously, it is more than reckless to imply that the poor are lazy and will be better employed as canal cleaners. Caritas has let slip a collective contempt for the poor, who, by the way, in the Philippines is every other person on the street, if you consider the fact that one in every four Filipinos is poor.

We are just exasperated with this government. No question about that. It is just awful that the Philippines is governed by a thieving family who had shamelessly tampered election results and fiddles time and again with government contracts, making off with million-dollar kickbacks enough to solve the country's poverty problem. I agree that the government has always shown that it has skewed priorities. I have a problem, though, with crying, "Wolf!" when the situation requires an informed discussion. There is a difference in being skeptical and being too skeptical to the point of idiocy. The former involves a lack of belief or confidence on say, an idea. The latter involves lack of hope that things may get better.

Reducing the discussion to crying, "Wolf!" is just senseless. The thing is, cash transfer programs are most frequently used as a response to the rise in food prices. Various kinds of cash transfer programs are in fact currently being implemented in many countries, including Brazil, China, Ethiopia, Egypt, Indonesia, Mexico, Mozambique, South Africa, Sri Lanka, and Tunisia as policy intervention to protect vulnerable groups.

Whether we like it or not, the days of cheap food are over. One billion people in Asia are now seriously affected by the food price surge and, unfortunately, this phenomenon is not temporary. Preliminary projections hold that we are facing at least 10 years of more expensive food. And for many countries and regions where progress in reducing poverty has been slow, the negative poverty impact of rising food prices risks undermining the poverty gains of the last 5 to 10 years. Progress in reducing malnutrition is also at risk, as vulnerable households are expected to substitute current diets with less food, or cheaper, but less nutritious food.

There is a crisis and it is here to stay. Short term and long term policy interventions are needed. These will have to be discussed in an informed manner not by way of aphorism and rhetorics. It is a start to ask the right questions, such as what is the scale, targeting efficiency and value of this program? Such as how to ensure that the non-poor will not take part in the program? Such as how do we freaking make this program work?#

lani villanueva

May 14, 2008