links: http://www.cbcpnews.com/cbcpnews/?p=39417
Pro-life supports scrap of CCT funds
QUEZON City, August 9, 2014—Pro-life Philippines supports the
proposal to exclude the conditional cash transfer (CCT) from the 2015
national budget.
Pro-life Philippines president Eric B. Manalang believes the
government’s Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program, popularly known as
“Four P’s”, barely improves the quality of lives of poor Filipinos who
are supposed to benefit from it.
Quoting a classic adage, he stressed, “Don’t give a man the fish, but teach him how to fish to eat for a lifetime.”
Prolife
Philippines president Eric B. Manalang calls on the government to
devote more time and resources to long-term livelihood projects and
employment opportunities, instead of to the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino
Program, which promotes dependency. (Photo: CBCP News)
In its place, Manalang suggested that the government should find ways
to create livelihood programs and employment opportunities for the
poor.
He explained, “Actually, it [CCT] offends human dignity. What our
leaders should consider doing with the money is to make more jobs, not
in doling out cash whose objective is consumption but still
unsustainable.”
He stressed that the government should closely monitor the auditing
of the multi-billion-peso CCT, and keep a list detailing its supposed
beneficiaries.
“The money must be audited to know how it was spent given the billions of pesos at stake here,” added Manalang.
Meanwhile, Fr. Edwin Mercado of Pondo ng Pinoy is convinced that the
CCT program is bound to fail because it does not involve developmental
enterprise and values formation of its recipients.
If there is no forming of values, the priest said, it will only promote a culture of dependency.
