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Scrimping on social welfare
IN THE PROPOSED 2018 national budget, the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) suffers from a massive budget cut – about 90 percent of its capital outlay. This budget slash will greatly affect the direct services offered by DSWD to vulnerable sectors such as senior citizens, children, persons with disability, women, solo parents, homeless families, and disaster victims.
The capital outlay which the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) included in the proposed budget was only P30.9 million, far below the P362.3 million in the 2017 budget or P3.4 billion that the DSWD requested from DBM. DSWD’s infrastructure outlay of previous years ranged from P238.8 million in 2014 to P909.4 million in 2016.
The budget cut will hinder DSWD’s performance of its main mandate – providing a wide range of direct services to vulnerable sectors. For instance, can a capital outlay of P30.9 million enable DSWD to repair the dilapidated centers and homes for the elderly and construct more of these institutions? This is doubtful. Repair and construction of these centers and homes are necessary, considering that there are only 71 nationwide and not all provinces, municipalities and cities have them, according to DSWD. This amount may not be enough, too, to build and maintain public orphanages or child centers and other social welfare institutions.
The truth is, only the ballooning funds for conditional cash transfer (CCT) or the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) have made DSWD consistently one of the agencies with the highest budgets. If we take away the CCT, DSWD is actually one of the agencies with the poorest funding. Take note that 4Ps is a mere safety net or band aid measure. What about all other programs and projects of DSWD? They should not be underfunded.
DSWD should be given a budget that will enable it to fulfill its various functions and mandate of ensuring social welfare and development, especially to vulnerable and marginalized sectors. It should not have the kind of budget that transforms it into a mere cash transfer agency.
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