Quezon City – The Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) has completed the special enumeration of unassessed Modified Conditional Cash Transfer (MCCT) beneficiaries in Listahanan 3 (L3), resulting in the suspension of grants being lifted and, more importantly, recipients being included in the database.

Last year, the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) received an Audit Observation Memo (AOM) from the Commission on Audit (COA) inquiring why there are beneficiaries who are not in Listahanan and urging the DSWD to ensure that all beneficiaries are in Listahanan. Given this AOM recommendation, DSWD was unable to release payments to MCCT beneficiaries, resulting in the temporary withholding of cash grants. Aside from the AOM, RA 11310, or the 4Ps Act, states that the DSWD shall select household-beneficiaries of the 4Ps from the Listahanan.

With the completion of the special enumeration, a total of 147,296 MCCT beneficiaries who were validated as “poor” by the Proxy Means Test (PMT) are expected to receive the withheld cash grants. Similarly, their inclusion in L3 means compliance with RA 11310, also known as the 4Ps Act, which states that the DSWD shall select qualified 4Ps household beneficiaries from the Listahanan.

Following the submission of status report on the unassessed MCCT beneficiaries in L3, the 4Ps NPMO had requested lifting of the suspension in which the Undersecretary for Operations and 4Ps National Project Director Adonis P. Sulit approved in June 2022.  Based on the National Household Targeting Office (NHTO) generated file, the total number of MCCT beneficiaries for enumeration as of 26 May 2022 is 42,062. This is an increase from the initial target of 31, 778 MCCT recipients due to requests from 11 Field Offices including BARMM, CAR, IV-A CALABARZON, IV-B MIMAROPA, NCR, I, II, III, VI, VII, and CARAGA.  Furthermore, the total number of MCCT beneficiaries processed for the PMT as of May 2022 is now 219,867. Of this number, 147,296 were found to be poor, 72,037 were found to be non-poor, and 534 were deleted due to duplications.

Meanwhile, the 4Ps NPMO is awaiting certification from NHTO that the 13,594 MCCT households that were unassessed and subject to special validation are poor, as the temporary withholding of cash grants was also lifted in October 2022, approved by Undersecretary Jerico Francis L. Javier.#