CPBRD FORUM

C O N G R E S S I O N A L P O L I C Y A N D B U D G E T R E S E A R C H D E PA R T M E N T

December 2013

No. 2013-04

An Initial Assessment
of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program:
Looking at Possible Potentials and Pitfalls
Background
An impact assessment of the Pantawid
Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps)the Philippine
governments flagship poverty reduction program
was presented in a forum jointly organized by
the Congressional Policy and Budget Research
Department (CPBRD) and the Philippine Institute
for Development Studies (PIDS) last May 29, 2013
at the House of Representatives. Dr. Celia Reyes,
Senior Fellow of the PIDS, presented the findings
of their study entitled Promoting Inclusive Growth
Through the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program
(4Ps), the highlights of which are discussed in this
article.
Their major findings included the following: 1) the
4Ps program leads to an increase in the school
participation rate by 3.5 percentage points among
children aged 6 to 14 years old; and 2) the 4Ps
program does not influence the participation of
children beyond the age coverage of the program,
meaning there is no significant difference between
the school participation rate of children aged 15
to 18 in 4Ps families and non-4Ps children (using
matched samples). It should be noted that the
present 4Ps coverage for 6- to 14-year-old children
is intended to enable the child to finish elementary
level.
A major recommendation of the study is to extend
the 4Ps or harmonize it with other government
programs to ensure that the children of household
beneficiaries finish at least secondary education.

The study contends that this will lead to more

inclusive growth and increase potential earnings of
4Ps children by at least 40%.
Overview of the Pantawid Pamilya
Implemented by the Department of Social Welfare
and Development (DSWD), the conditional cash
transfers (CCT) program aims to provide social
assistance through cash transfers to supplement
the income of poor households in selected
municipalities, subject to their compliance with
conditionalities related to education and health.
These conditionalities are: 1) pregnant women must
avail of pre- and post-natal care and be attended
during childbirth by a trained health professional;
2) parents must attend family development
sessions; 3) 0- to 5-year-old children must receive
regular preventive health check-ups and vaccines;
4) 3- to 5-year-old children must attend day care
or pre-school classes at least 85% of the time; 5)
6- to 14-year-old children must enrol in elementary
or high school and must attend at least 85% of the
time; and 6) 6-14-year-old children must receive
de-worming pills twice a year.
The poor households were identified through the
National Household Targeting System for Poverty
Reduction (NHTS-PR). Program beneficiaries were
selected based on the following: 1) residents
of poorest municipalities; 2) households whose
economic condition is equal to or below the
provincial poverty threshold; 3) households that

An Initial Assessment of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program: Looking at Possible Potentials and Pitfalls
Page 2

have children 0 to 14 years old and/or have a

pregnant woman at the time of assessment; and 4)
households that agree to meet conditions specified
in the program. The program covers some 3.8
million households as of the first quarter in 2013.
Implementation of CCT targeting in other countries
Dr. Reyes noted that important lessons from other
countries that implemented CCT can provide
some guidance on how to improve institutional
capacity, especially in the targeting aspect of
the program. Different experiences from Latin
American countries which helped popularize the
CCT have shown that implementation challenges
and distributional outcomes vary from country to
the other. But in terms of population coverage, it
would appear that most Latin American countries
target the poorest households as beneficiaries. For
instance, Bolsa Familia in Brazil targets extremely
poor households regardless of their composition.
No conditionalities, however, are imposed for the
childless extremely poor households. Similarly,
Mexicos Oportunidades/Progresa which started
in rural communities targeted extremely poor
households, and later expanded to cover the
extremely poor in urban areas. In the case of
Colombia, it targeted extremely poor households
in selected communities.
Design and Implementation Issues
Dr. Reyes pointed out that the 4Ps has some
problems in its design and implementation,
including the targeting system used and the high
administrative costs.
There are issues on whether the targeting or
selection of beneficiaries is being done properly.
For one, their study showed the 4Ps has a leakage
rate of about 30%. Only 70.81% of the 4Ps
beneficiaries in 2011 are income poor (after taking
out the cash grant). The NHTS-PR also identified
5.2 million poor families, way above the estimated
3.9 million poor families in 2009 and to include all
these families in the program will lead to an even
higher leakage rate.

Also, it was found that among the 4Ps beneficiaries

who were poor, only 7.2% became non-poor when
given cash transfers. Meanwhile, the exclusion
rate of the 4Ps was estimated at 79.7%, with the
program having reached 20.3% of the countrys
total poor families. Reyes also noted that the 4Ps
program may have been scaled up too rapidly,
with household beneficiaries increasing from .006
million in 2007 to 5.2 million in 2014 (Figure 1).
Figure 1
Number of 4Ps Household Beneficiaries By Year,
2007-2013 (In Millions)
6

5.2

5
3.8

3.1
2.3

3
2
1

0.006

0.34

0.63

1.0

0
2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

Source: PIDS using basic DSWD data. 2013

The administrative cost of the program was also

substantial. Since the 4Ps program has been piloted
in 2007, a total of P75.993 billion has already been
allocated for its implementation. By the end of
2013, this would roughly be around P120 billion.
The share of the cash transfer to total budget was
at 80.9% in 2011 and 89.9% in 2012 (Figure 2).
Reyes also pointed out that in 2011, the
administration cost accounted for 19% of the total
program cost but was estimated to go down to 10%
in 2012. However, the P4 billion cost of running
the program is equivalent to supporting 266,667
million families with three eligible children for one
year.
The other problems in the implementation as
mentioned by Reyes included: 1) the delays in
transferring the cash grants (every two months); 2)
the use of the cash card system by the beneficiaries

Congressional Policy and Budget Research Department

Page 3

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

Source: PIDS using data from 2011 APIS

Assessing the Programs Impact

Characteristics of Beneficiaries. Reyes explained
that they used the 2011 Annual Poverty
Incidence Survey (APIS) to create a profile of the
4Ps beneficiaries. They determined that the
beneficiaries make up 6.4% of the total families
covered by the APIS and more than 82% of all 4Ps
beneficiaries is made up of rural families.
In terms of educational attainment, the studys data
show that majority of the poor reached only up to
elementary undergraduate level only (Table I). On
the average, there are relatively more members in
4Ps families who have lower educational attainment
than in non-4Ps families, especially among those
who have some elementary education. However,
the difference between the two groups becomes
smaller in the next two levels (elementary graduate
and high school undergraduate) and the pattern
eventually reverses starting with the proportion of
those who at most are high school graduates.

10.4
0.1

Figure 3
Distribution of 4PS Families By Per Capita- Income
Decile, Share To Total, (%)
40
35

35.7

30

25.7

25
20

17.4

15

10.2

10

5.9

2.7

1.2

0.7

0.4

2008

0.9
0

0.2

Ri
ch
es
t

2007

4.9
21.1
12.2
13.4
18.6
12.0

299

9.6
36.8
14.8
14.9
9.2
2.6

50

5000
0

10,000
5,000

21,194

20000
15000
10000

Non-4Ps

The study revealed that very few members in 4Ps

families had higher levels of education. Less than
10% finished at most high school, only around 2.6%
were able to get some college units while barely
1% managed to get a college degree. Reyes said
that these findings show the need to improve the
educational attainment of the poor. It is important
that programs such as the 4Ps be implemented to
help them reach higher education or finish at least
high school. Reyes added that the average daily
wage of someone who has finished high school is
40% higher than that who has reached some years
in elementary level.

40000
35000
30000
25000

44,250
39,450

4Ps

College graduate
Postgraduate
Source: PIDS using data from 2011 APIS

50000
45000

Highest Educational
Attainment
No grade completed
Elementary undergraduate
Elementary graduate
High School undergraduate
High School graduate
College undergraduate

Figure 2
4PS Budget Allocation, 2007-2013
(In Million Pesos)

Table 1
Mean Proportion of Members in 4Ps and Non-4Ps
Families by Highest Educational Atteainment, 2011

Po
or
es

only for the transfer of cash; and 3) without the

option to keep money in the bank like a regular
ATM savings account; and 4) the distribution of
grants in cash (e.g. Naujan, Oriental Mindoro) in
informal venues which may be a municipal hall
next to a tiangge.

Source: PIDS using basic DSWD data. 2013

In terms of income, the study showed that based on

data for the first semester 2011, 4Ps beneficiaries
had an average per capita income of PhP8,522,

An Initial Assessment of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program: Looking at Possible Potentials and Pitfalls
Page 4

with the poorest 10% having a per capita income

of only P4,788. Without the cash grant, Reyes
said that each person from 4Ps families had about
PhP7,740 to cover his or her expenses for the entire
six months (Figure 3).
Impact on Education. To establish whether the 4Ps
has been meeting its objective in improving school
participation, the school attendance of children
beneficiaries as well as children in non-4Ps families
were compared using data from the 2011 APIS.
Comparing school attendance rates of children in
4Ps and non-4Ps families, by single year of age, the
school attendance rates of children in 4Ps families
who are 6 to 11 years old have mostly slightly
higher school attendance rates than children in
non-4Ps families of the same age range. The school
attendance rates among children aged 6 to 14 in
both groups range from 90 to 99%. On the other
hand, the proportions of children above 14 years
of age who are attending school are lower than
80%. This even goes down as the children grow
older from 15 to 18 years old. Also, starting from
age 12 up to age 18, children of non-4Ps families
already have higher school attendance rates than
their counterparts in 4Ps families (Table 2).
Table 2
Proportion of Children who are Attending in 4PS
and Non-4PS who are Attending School,
by Single Year of Age, 2011
Age
6
7
8
9

4Ps
92.6
98.0
98.4
98.9

Non-4Ps
92.0
97.2
98.4
98.2

10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18

98.3
98.3
96.4
93.6
89.7
77.5
60.0
43.6
33.8

98.1
97.8
97.0
93.9
90.7
86.2
71.3
58.7
48.2

Source: PIDS using basic DSWD data. 2013

Similarly, a comparison of school attendance rates

of children in 4Ps and non-4Ps families belonging to
the bottom 40% shows that children in 4Ps families
with ages of 6 to 14 have higher attendance rates
than children in non-4Ps families of the same age
range. The big differences were observed in the
groups: 6 year-olds (5.5 percentage points), 13 yearolds (4.9 percentage points) and 14 year-olds (4.1
percentage points). For ages 15 to 16, on the other
hand, children of non-4Ps families exhibit higher
school attendance rates than their counterparts in
4Ps families.
Further comparison of school attendance rates of
children in matched 4Ps and non-4Ps families by
single year of age for 2011 revealed that there is
significant statistical difference between the school
attendance rates of children in matched 4Ps and
non-4Ps families for ages 6 to 14. According to
Reyes, this means that 4Ps appears to be having a
positive impact on school participation of children
at the primary level. She further pointed out that
this is more evident among the youngest batch of
children beneficiaries and among those who are in
their last year of being in the program. However,
for ages 15 to 18, there is no significant statistical
difference between the school attendance rates of
children in matched 4Ps and non-4Ps families.
Reyes explained that when their study looked at
whether the child is studying and/or working, their
findings showed that the proportion of children
who are both studying and working is higher among
4Ps families than among non-4Ps families for all
age groups. While children in 4Ps families who are
attending school start working at an early age of 6,
the proportion of those who are both studying and
working is higher among older children, especially
at age 14. Moreover, at age 15, the proportion of
those who are not attending school but are working
significantly increases (15% from 5% at age 14).
This could mean that when children reach age 15,
they begin to focus on finding work than going to
school. While this may be true in non-4Ps families,
it is more evident among 4Ps families (Figure 4).

Congressional Policy and Budget Research Department

Page 5

Figure 4
Proportion of Children in Matched Non-4Ps
Families who are Attending School and/or
Working, Both Sexes, by Single Year of Age, 2011
100.0
90.0

92.1

96.9

96.5

95.7

94.4

92.6

80.0

To reduce administrative cost, Reyes recommended

the adoption of a unified data collection system
for NHTS-PR which they expect will also reduce
potential response bias.

84.8

88.7

75.2

70.0

63.1

60.0

48.4

50.0

46.1

40.0

38.29
33.6

30.0

26.15

20.0
10.0

24.3

14.88
0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.1

0.54

0.91

2.52

10

11

12

13

5.39

0.0
Out of school working

14

15

Should grants be provided when children graduate

from high school?, and c) What maximum number
of years should the program have?

16

17

18

Studying, not working

Source: PIDS using data from 2011 APIS

These findings support the conclusion that the 4Ps

does not influence the participation of children
beyond the age coverage of the program which
is currently to 6- to 14-year-old children with the
intention of encouraging them to finish elementary.
Older children have been found to seek work
instead of continuing their education.
Recommendations
Addressing Targeting Issues. To improve the
targeting scheme, Reyes recommended the
following: 1) Reduce the leakage rate by updating
the Proxy Means Test Model; 2) Reduce the
exclusion rate by moving away from the strategy
of focusing on pockets of poverty; and 3) Focus
on the chronic poor; transient poor may require
programs other than the CCT. Chronic poor are
those that are consistently income poor during the
period under study, while transient poor are those 1
who are classified as poor during a given point in
time but were previously non-poor for at least one
year during the period under study.
Enhancing Program Implementation. On the rapid
scale-up of the 4Ps, Reyes recommended pilot
testing changes in the program before scaling up.
Such measure would entail answering important
questions on the program such as: a) Should bigger
grants be given to children in high school?, b)

To improve program implementation, Reyes

also recommended reducing the lag in including
beneficiaries identified through on-demand
system. The cash transfer should also be
distributed monthly, instead of every two months.
This will ensure that the households have the
funds when they need it and will not resort to
using their ATM cards as collateral for loans. She
also recommended that ATM card of the 4Ps
beneficiaries be used for a regular savings account.
Instead of just withdrawing the whole amount, this
will encourage them to save even a small amount.
Moving Forward
On the extension of the 4Ps. During the forum, there
was discussion on whether, and in what manner
the 4Ps would be modified and/or extended. Dr.
Romulo E. M. Miral, Jr. of the CPBRD opined that
the present 4Ps design does not address the
problem of improving attendance rates at the high
school level.
Another issue raised was on whether the age
coverage of the program would be extended up
to 18 years old (in line with the K+12 Program)
or whether the maximum of five years support
provided to beneficiaries would be extended.
Reyes responded that for the new beneficiaries,
DSWD may consider focusing on older children
given that the rate of return is 40% higher when
children finish high school.
Reyes pointed out, however, that at its present
state, it is not advisable to institutionalize the 4Ps
through legislation. She expressed her support
for the continuity of a well-designed program and
stressed that the DSWD still needs to fine-tune the

An Initial Assessment of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program: Looking at Possible Potentials and Pitfalls
Page 6

program. Reyes took exception on the fact that the

leakage cost of the program is 29% which could
finance a 5-year program.

added that their Department has set up a grievance

redress system, such that even non-4Ps families
can report when a family should not be included.

On the issue of leakages. House Committee

on Poverty Alleviation Secretary, Ms. Lourdes
Mendoza, expressed her concerns on whether it
would be necessary to do another study on health
issues to determine whether women are healthier
(because of the 4Ps), and how the NHTS-PR would
be able to reduce leakage.

House Committee on Peoples Participation

Secretary, Dr. Rolando Cronico, raised three
issues: 1) the need to re-design the targeting
system to safeguard integrity (target areas
for selection of household beneficiaries); 2)
institutionalization of citizens and volunteers
participation in implementation, evaluation and
feedback mechanism with regard to the program;
and 3) House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr.s
Volunteerism Bill which has a multi-sectoral
partnership framework.

Dr. Reyes said that reducing the leakage rate to 10%

will result in savings amounting to billions of pesos.
She emphasized that the 4Ps is not enough, and it
is important to look at other programs (livelihood
and employment) and to have an exit strategy for
graduates of the program.
Moreover, she noted that government has to unify
its data collection to do away with respondents
who identify themselves as poor just to be included
in the CCT. Ms. Romelyn Nazarete of the DSWD

With further fine-tuning and possible modification,

the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program carries
significant potential to succeed in improving health
and education outcomes but more work needs to
be undertaken to resolve the various structural and
implementation issues being raised. Prepared by:
Byron M. Bicenio and Rommel V Asuncion

Impact of Conditional Cash Transfer

in Other Countries
Overview
Conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs have
become a popular tool for social protection around
the world. Such programs transfer cash to poor
households on the condition that they will spend
these on education and health. They therefore
hold promise for addressing the inter-generational
transmission of poverty and fostering social
inclusion.
An inherent feature in CCT programs, particularly in
Latin American countries, is the built-in monitoring
and evaluation. Many of these programs have
conducted impact evaluations using counterfactuals
and these have contributed to the transparency
of cash transfer efforts. The World Bank (2009)

noted that impact assessment of CCT programs

use comparisons between a treatment group or
those who receive an intervention and a control
group or those who did not receive it. These two
groups, however, should be comparable in terms of
observable and unobservable characteristics and
failure to do so may affect the results.
Distributional Outcomes of CCT
As in most evaluations on the CCTs, distributional
outcomes as a result of these social interventions
were focused on improvements in education,
health and consumption components.
On Education. In the case of Mexico, findings from
the impact assessment in 2008 of the Oportunidades

Congressional Policy and Budget Research Department

Page 7

Program indicated that its largest impact was on

education, with positive results on the following:
1) on enrolment, 2) total years of schooling, 3)
dropouts and progressing on time. Importantly,
many of the effects seem to be strongest for older
children.
Some of the most significant enrolment impacts
were observed at the transition between primary
and middle school, where many children tended
to drop out before Oportunidades. Short-term
results in urban areas found the impact on school
enrolment to increase in range between 912
percentage points for boys ages 1217, and 12.6
14.4 percentage points for girls the same age.
In terms of increasing the number of years in
school, it was observed that after nearly six years
of program benefits in rural areas, schooling
increased by nearly a year for those participating
compared to those who are non-participating. This
also indicated important increases in progressing
on time through school, with an increase of 13.5
percentage points for girls aged 1521, compared
to 16 percentage points for boys the same age.
While impact on reducing repetition appeared to
be higher for younger children (ages 610), the
impact on reducing dropout rates and encouraging
re-entry among those who have dropped out was
higher at the lower secondary school level.
Similarly, Bolsa Familia in Brazil had a positive
impact on school attendance. An evaluation in
2007 found improvements in terms of probability
of absence, which was 3.6 percentage points lower
among children in beneficiary households, and in
probability of dropping out which was also lower
by 1.6 percentage points within the same group.
There was, however, an observation that children
in the Bolsa group were four times more likely than
non-Bolsa children to not advance in school. The
study attributed this to that most of the children
in Bolsa households having been away from school
for a long time that they had difficulty catching up
with those who have always been in school.

A 2007 study on the Red de Proteccion Social (RPS)

in Nicaragua showed that the cash transfer program
had positive and significant effects on a broad
range of indicators and outcomes. In education,
there was a marked increase in school enrolment
among the children of households under the
RPS. The number of children who advanced two
grades between 2000 and 2002 also increased. In
tandem with increased schooling, the percentage
of children 7-13 years working also declined.
On Health. Oportunidades had shown positive
effects on beneficiaries health due to regular
preventive medical visits and communal educative
self-care workshops. The Program has encouraged
households to carry out basic sanitation practices
which helped them detect possible risk factors
and take care of gastrointestinal and respiratory
infections on time. By 2007, anemia incidence
on beneficiaries younger than two years has been
reduced by almost half (35.8%) compared to 1999
figures (61%). Low height prevalence has been
diminished by one third of what was observed 10
years ago (23.9% compared to 35%), that is, 11
percentage points less. Over the past 10 years,
the prevalence of anemia and height/weight deficit
have been greatly reduced within the beneficiaries,
going from 44% and 44.3%, respectively in 1998 to
32.5% in 2007.
Oportunidades also contributed to the promotion of
information regarding reproductive health. Female
high school beneficiaries now have access to plenty
of information concerning family planning. Studies
showed that beneficiary women of reproductive
age of 15- to 49- years old, had increased their use
of birth control; in 1998 only 36% of women used
them compared to 42% in 2003 and 57% in 2007.
Nicaraguas RPS also recorded a substantial increase
in the number of households that availed of child
health care services, such as weight monitoring.
There was no indication however that RPS
contributed significantly in availment of vaccination
since both treatment and control groups recorded
increases in vaccination. (Meluccio, 2004)

An Initial Assessment of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program: Looking at Possible Potentials and Pitfalls
Page 8

The increased use of preventive health care

services for children has been accompanied
by an improvement in the nutritional status of
beneficiary children under age 5. This resulted in
an observable 0.5 percentage point decline in the
number of children who were stunted.
It was not the same for Bolsa Familia in Brazil.
The evaluation found that the program had no
impact on child immunization despite being one of
the conditionalities. The study suggests that the
absence of impact may be due to constraints in
the supply-side, such as health services that may
not be available to the beneficiaries. In Mexico,
only communities with education and health
facilities are selected for their program. Moreover,
monitoring of compliance to conditionalities and
cash transfers work side by side in Oportunidades
whereas in Bolsa Familia, compliance is monitored
at the municipal level and only reported to the
federal government. (Soares, 2010)
Likewise, the results of the evaluation do not
show any positive impact on stunting and wasting
among children of Bolsa households. Data from
Brazils Nutrition Call Survey which was conducted
in health centers in arid regions of the country
showed that the program had significant impact on
reducing stunting among children 6 to 11 months
old and reducing wasting among children up to 5
months old. However, it did not have impact on
children 12-36 months old, which is the critical
period for nutritional vulnerability since is when the
nutritional needs of infants increase. The survey,
however, was conducted among pre-selected
households and not randomly.
Earnings and Expenses. Oportunidades has
positive effects regarding workforce incorporation
by increasing beneficiaries school attendance
and improving their health. In general, individuals
with higher education have greater opportunities
to obtain well-paid jobs. Moreover, younger
beneficiaries who have received cash transfers
for at least six years and who have finished their
elementary and junior high school education
have increased their salaries by 12% and 14%

respectively, compared to non-beneficiaries.

The RPS also supplemented per capita annual total
household expenditures by 18%. For beneficiary
households, this increase compensated for the
large income loss they experienced during the
period. Most of the increase in expenses was
spent on food while expenditures on education
also increased.
The evaluation on Bolsa Familia showed that the
program has not significantly affected the aggregate
consumption of households in contrast with what
was found in households covered by Mexicos
Oportunidades. However, positive impacts were
observed in expenditures on food, education and
childrens clothing. Consequently, the share of
income spent on such items also went up among
beneficiary households. Despite conditionalities
on health checkups, the evaluation found no
significant impact on consumption related to
childrens health. Prepared by Rommel V. Asuncion