BAGUIO CITY: The Department of Social Welfare and Development in Cordillera Autonomous Region (DSWD-CAR) announced that 15 to 17-year-old children of the family beneficiaries in the government’s Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) otherwise known as the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) are included under the modified CCT program.

Director Leonardo Reynoso of DSWD-CAR said that by including these children of CCT family beneficiaries, the government aims to ensure that the children of the poor families finish at least a secondary education.

For Cordillera, he said that there are 648 CCT households monitored to have children in these age bracket and are now being validated. After encoding the data on the 15 to 17-year-old, they can already be monitored by the CCT system.

Under the modified CCT, Reynoso said that the program expands its coverage to families in need of special protection to provide and strengthen the safety, protection and development of children in difficult circumstances.

The DSWD in partnership with Civil Society Groups (CSOs), will be covering children from the streets to include homeless families, indigenous people’s migrant families, families with children with disabilities, families of child laborers, displaced families due to manmade and natural disasters and other families in need of special protection that was not listed under the National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction.

For DSWD-CAR, its CSO partners for the modified CCT are the Baguio-based Heaven of Care Resource Center and the International Association for Transformation of Kalinga.

CCT program focal man Irene Bungay said that at present the CCT program is being implemented in all the 75 municipalities in the six provinces in Cordillera, including the cities of Baguio and Tabuk, covering 55,145 poor households, region-wide.

She said that registration of potential beneficiaries for expansion of the program have already started, while validation in the expansion municipalities, except Baguio City, has already been conducted and with a total of 963 registered beneficiaries. Per municipality, identified CCT set six expansion beneficiaries includes one in La Paz, Abra province; 25 in Conner and five in Cabugao, both in Apayao province; 65 in Bakun, 185 in Kabayan and 113 in Kapangan, for Benguet province; 56 in Asipulo and 29 in Tinoc, for Ifugao province; and 137 in Balbalan and 340 in Pinukpuk, Kalinga province.