Just this morning, our Department was made aware of a Senate-initiated cut of P8 billion in the cash grants for Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program beneficiaries in our 2016 proposed budget.

This was made despite the fact that the Senate has approved our budget proposal in the budget plenary session in November, without deductions. In fact, they even put in additional funds to our Social Pension and Supplementary Feeding Programs so we can cover more indigent Filipinos in need of government support.

Hence, we cannot accept the reduction in our budget, more so that it will be taken from the cash grants for Pantawid Pamilya beneficiaries.

Our budget sponsor, Senator Ralph Recto has committed to work on restoring our budget to the proposed amount of P113 billion.

It has to be put back as the P8 billion deduction means that for two months, 4.4 million households will not receive health and education grants. For two months, 10.2 million children will not be able to go to school to study nor visit a health facility to have their physical fitness checked. For two months, there will be no Family Development Sessions that the parents will attend and learn from.

Senators Vicente “Tito” Sotto, Juan Ponce Enrile and Loren Legarda, the proponents of the cut, may have to explain to more than 15 million Pantawid Pamilya individual beneficiaries why they will have to go through this. ###