The Department of Social Welfare and Development has assured a Negrense solon that the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program of the national government is apolitical.

The DSWD national office has an existing memorandum directing all personnel tasked to implement the 4Ps or the conditional cash transfer program, and the Kapit Bisig Laban sa Kahirapan-Comprehensive and Integrated Delivery of Social Services, to ensure that they are politically-neutral, Rep. Pryde Henry Teves (Neg. Or., 3rd District) said.

He said that he was assured by DSWD Secretary Dinky Soliman during a recent department’s budget hearing at the House of Representatives that a beneficiary cannot be removed from the program for not supporting a certain candidate.

Soliman is also planning to instruct all municipal links and field officers to inform CCT and Kalahi-CIDSS beneficiaries that these programs will continue whoever is the mayor, congressman or governor, he said.

He urged beneficiaries of the programs to immediately report to him or to the DSWD, incidence of being pressured to support a candidate in exchange for the continuous entitlement to the anti-poverty alleviation programs.

He said the 4Ps and Kalahi-CIDSS will continue until 2019. He said that in the third district, around 15,000 beneficiaries of CCT and Kalahi came from Bayawan City and from the towns of Basay, Sta. Catalina, Siaton and Zamboanguita.*RA

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