ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE AND

SCHOOL ATTENDANCE OF THE

4PS CHILDREN OF PEARRUBIA
DISTRICT 2016-2017
A RESEARCH PAPER PRESENTED TO THE
GRADUATE SCHOOL OF TE DIVINE WORD
COLLEGE OF BANGUED
BANGUED, ABRA
IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE
REQUIREMENTS FOR TE SUBJECT
METHODS OF RESEARCH

BY:
SHERALD ROY G. ZAPATERO
MAED STUDENT

Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION
The

Pantawid

Pamilyang

Pilipino

Program

(4Ps)

is

human

development measure of the national government that provides conditional

cash grants to the poorest of the poor, to improve the health, nutrition, and
the education of children aged 0-18. It is patterned after the conditional cash
transfer (CCT) schemes in Latin American and African countries, which have
lifted millions of people around the world from poverty.
The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) is the lead
government agency of the 4Ps.
The 4Ps has dual objectives as the flagship poverty alleviation program
of the Aquino administration:
*social assistance, giving monetary support to extremely poor families
to respond to

their immediate needs; and

*social development, breaking the intergenerational poverty cycle by

investing in the health and education of poor children through
programs such as:
-health check-ups for pregnant women and children aged 0 to 5;
-deworming of schoolchildren aged 6 to 14;
-enrollment of children in daycare, elementary, and secondary schools;
and
-family development sessions.
The 4Ps also helps the Philippine government fulfill its commitment to
the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)specifically in eradicating

extreme poverty and hunger, in achieving universal primary education, in

promoting gender equality, in reducing child mortality, and in improving
maternal health care.
The 4Ps operates in all the 17 regions in the Philippines, covering 79
provinces, 143 cities, and 1,484 municipalities. Beneficiaries are selected
through the National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction
(NHTS-PR), which identifies who and where the poor are in the country.
In general, the following criteria must be satisfied to become eligible for the
program:

Residents of the poorest municipalities, based on 2003 Small Area

Estimates (SAE) of the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB)

Households whose economic condition is equal to or below the

provincial poverty threshold

Households that have children 0-18 years old and/or have a pregnant
woman at the time of assessment

Households that agree to meet conditions specified in the program

As of August 26, 2015, there are 4,353,597 active householdbeneficiaries, of which 570,056 are indigenous households and 217,359 have
at least one PWD. The program also covers 10,235,658 schoolchildren aged 0
to 18, from the total registered with an average of two to three children per
household.
The 4Ps has two types of cash grants that are given out to householdbeneficiaries:

health grant: P500 per household every month, or a total of P6,000

every year

education grant: P300 per child every month for ten months, or a
total of P3,000 every year (a household may register a maximum of
three children for the program)

For a household with three children, a household may receive P1,400

every month, or a total of P15,000 every year for five years, from the two
types of cash grants given to them.
These cash grants are distributed to the household-beneficiaries through
the Land Bank of the Philippines or, if not feasible, through alternate
payment schemes such as Globe G-Cash remittance and rural bank
transactions.
As of August 2015, a total of P27.15 billion cash grants were paid to
eligible and compliant beneficiaries for the first to third period of 2015
covering January to August disbursements. From this amount, P13.23 billion
was paid for education, and the remaining P13.92 billion was disbursed for
health.
In order to receive the abovementioned subsidies, all the succeeding
conditions must be met by the household-beneficiaries:
1. Pregnant women must avail pre- and post-natal care, and be attended
during childbirth by a trained professional;
2. Parents or guardians must attend the family development sessions,
which include topics on responsible parenting, health, and nutrition;
3. Children aged 0-5 must receive regular preventive health check-ups
and vaccines;
4. Children aged 6-14 must receive deworming pills twice a year; and
5. Children-beneficiaries aged 3-18 must enroll in school, and maintain an
attendance of at least 85% of class days every month.

High compliance rates were recorded for the months of March and April
2015: 99.91% for the deworming of children aged 6-14; 98.99% for school
attendance of children aged 6-14; 98.33% for school attendance of children
in daycare aged 3-5; 97.05% for school attendance of children aged 15-18;
95.95% for health visits of pregnant women and children aged 0-5; and
94.84% for attendance in family development sessions.
In partnership with the Commission on Higher Education, the
Department of Labor and Employment, and the Philippine Association of
State Universities and Colleges, 4Ps has enrolled 36,003 beneficiaries in
state universities and colleges as of June 2015.
Additionally, in partnership with PhilHealth, 4Ps has covered 4.4 million
beneficiaries under the National Health Insurance Program.

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

The Pantawid Pamilya2 is a conditional cash transfer (CCT) program

which provides cash to beneficiary households, subject to compliance with
program conditionalities. The Pantawid Pamilya is targeted at chronic poor
households with children aged 0-14 years who are located in poor areas. The
cash grants range from P500 (US$11) to P1,400 (US$32) per household per
month, depending on the number of eligible children. To qualify for the
grants, beneficiary households must undertake certain activities that are
meant to improve the childrens health and education such as visiting health
centers regularly, sending the children to school, and undertaking preventive

check-ups for pregnant women. Like most CCT programs, the Pantawid
Pamilya aims to alleviate current poverty by supplementing the income of
the poor to address their immediate consumption needs, while the
conditionalities can help improve human capital and thus break the
intergenerational cycle of poverty.
In recent years, several countries have adopted the CCT program as a
new approach to providing social assistance to the poor. Many countries in
Latin America have such a program, and large-scale CCT programs are also
being undertaken in Asian countries such as Bangladesh and Indonesia. In
the Philippines, the Pantawid Pamilya started as a pilot program of the
Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) in 2007 when the
agency was embarking on social sector reform. Today, the program is seen
more broadly as a vehicle for enhancing coordination within the government
in assisting the poor and for increasing the effectiveness of social protection
programs. The Pantawid Pamilya does this by complementing supply side
interventions of other line agencies such as the Department of Education
(DepEd) and Department of Health (DOH) in addressing lagging human
development outcomes.
Following the pilot program conducted at the end of 2007in which
the household targeting system and basic operation of the Pantawid Pamilya
were testedthe Pantawid Pamilya was scaled up in March 2008 as a
response to the food and fuel price shocks and global financial crisis. The
Pantawid Pamilya has undergone two more phases of expansion since then.
By January 2011, the program had about 1 million beneficiary households,
making the Pantawid Pamilya one of the largest social protection programs in
the Philippines. The massive scale-up was made possible by pooling
resources from the government and the World Bank. The World Bank and
Australian

Agency

for

International

Development

(AusAID)

provided

considerable technical assistance. Subsequent phases have also been

supported by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in coordination with the

Government, World Bank, and AusAID. In 2011, the Pantawid Pamilya aims to
cover 2.3 million beneficiary households, or almost 60 percent of the poor
households in the Philippines. The program has budgetary support of P21
billion, or about 60 percent of DSWDs budget for 2011.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The highlight of this research in order that this study will be completed
is to know the possible things that affect the academic performance and

school attendance of the 4Ps children of pearrubia District for the School
Year 2015-2016.
The general problems stated are the following:
a. Is there any significant relation of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino
Program of the government to the academic performance of the
recipients?
b. Is there any significant relation of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino
Program of the government to the school attendance of the recipients?
c. What are the factors that affect academic performance and school
attendance of the recipients?
d. How are these factors be resolved?

HYPOTHESIS

The 4Ps is said to bring about desired impacts on income poverty and
vulnerability in the short run. The ADB4 cited an ex-ante analysis of 4Ps

education grants and it noted that if accurately targeted to children in all

poor households nationwide, the education component alone could lift 31.1%
of poor households out of poverty and decrease the national poverty gap
measure by 52.5%. The document further claims that since the 4Ps has
targeted the poor areas, the impact would be much larger. The estimated
increase in the total incomes of the poor and eligible households in the
targeted areas per World Bank is 23 percent, where the poverty rate is
expected to fall by 6.1 percentage points. In the long-run, the 4Ps goal is to
achieve improvements in human capital.
The 4Ps is seen to have great potential in increasing educational
attainment and improving nutrition and health outcomes based on the
experience of other countries who have implemented the CCT. One of the
problems in the educational system that the 4Ps is expected to impact is
increasing dropout rates. The CCT programs in other countries have been
successful in achieving higher enrolment rates. he 4Ps is expected to
increase utilization of health services among the poor as the additional cash
they receive will help cover costs; and improve nutritional status of children
through increased household income and various counseling and monitoring
components of the 4Ps. Among other broader potential benefits of the 4Ps
include magnified multiplier effect of the cash flow on the local economy
knowing that these were paid to women who are believed to typically invest
more on education and health care; increased financial literary of the poor
which in turn can enhance their savings behaviour; and increased bargaining
power within the household.

ASSUMPTIONS

The conditional cash transfer program, the 4Ps, is in its fifth year. The
current size of the 4Ps is already significant with 2.3 million family
beneficiaries, given that the number of poor families is 3.9 million. Before
further scaling up, it is essential to assess the implementation of the
Pantawid Pamilya Pilipino Program (4Ps) and address the concerns about the
program to ensure that the extremely poor experience the maximum
benefits from the program. The same was suggested by Llanto (2008). He
noted that it is important to establish empirical evidence that the 4Ps
program impacts human capital outcomes before contemplating any rapid
expansion. The 4Ps being implemented on a phased model allows for this
generation of empirical evidence to test crucial program components such as
targeting and monitoring system. More importantly, it should reconsider how
it identifies the extremely poor. Targeting the chronic poor would provide
better focus to the program. Moreover, to properly identify the extremely
poor, one needs to utilize more than one reference period to account for the
movements in and out of poverty. Data show that majority of the poor in
2009 are transient poor, only 47 percent are considered chronic poor (Reyes,
et.al. 2011). This important information was extracted using longitudinal
data obtained from tracking the same households for several years. The
finding evidently shows that targeting the poor based on a single reference
period and treating them as if they are all the same would be too narrow a
strategy that will not tackle poverty successfully. Programs have to be
designed to comprehensively take into account the differences among the
needs of different segments of the poor. Moreover, it might be good to
review the strategy of covering selected barangays in some of the
municipalities. Limiting coverage to pockets of poverty in areas where
poverty incidence is high based on 2003 small area estimates may lead to
significant exclusion. Only 25 percent, or 404 municipalities and cities, have
poverty incidence greater than or equal to 50 percent. The rest, representing
3 out of every 4 municipality and city, have poverty incidence less than 50
percent. Limiting survey area to poorest municipalities to reduce data

collection costs may not be the most appropriate way since this will lead to
exclusion of some of the extremely poor. Other options such as using CBMS
data already collected by the local government units or partnering with local
government units in implementing CBMS may be a 13 more practical
solution. This would not only avoid duplication of efforts and wastage of
resources, but it would also encourage greater buy-in by the local
governments in national programs. The first batch of beneficiaries will be
reaching its fifth year in 2012. It would be timely to assess the impacts of the
program by examining the situation of this group of families and whether 4Ps
has indeed improved the health, education, nutrition and poverty outcomes
of these families. Moreover, it would be good to see whether the exit policy
of the program (the beneficiary can only participate in the program by at
most 5 years) is feasible, It would also be helpful if the NHTS updates its
proxy means test model for its targeting system by using the most recent
Family Income and Expenditure Survey data and adopting the revised
estimates of poverty thresholds. This would likely address the seemingly too
large number of eligible beneficiaries being identified by the current system.
It is also important to evaluate how effective the program is in terms of the
amount of the grant. Is the size enough to encourage the children to remain
in school? Do we see evidence of reduced participation in the labor force
because of the transfer? To conclude, it is critical that an impact monitoring
and evaluation be done at this stage to improve the mechanisms of
identifying the beneficiaries to minimize leakages and exclusion, address
loopholes in the system to avoid wastage of scarce resources, and address
the supplyside deficiencies. The 4Ps is such an important and expensive
program and going on hastily with further expansion with all these concerns
is the last thing a poverty-stricken, budget-constrained, and highly indebted
country like the Philippines should be doing.

REFERENCES
Azevedo, V. and M. Robles. n.d. Multidimensional Targeting: Identifying
Beneficiaries of Conditional Cash Transfer Programs. Available online at
http://www.chronicpoverty.org/uploads/publication_files/azevedo_robles_multidimen
sional. pdf. Retrieved February 22,2012.
Barrientos, A., D. Hulme, and K. Moore. 2006. Social Protection for the
Poorest: Taking a Broader View In Poverty in Focus: Social Protection: the role of
cash transfers. International Poverty Centre. United Nations Development
Programme. June 2006.pp. 6-8 Available online at http://www.ipcundp.org/pub/IPCPovertyInFocus8.pdf Retrieved January 3, 2011.
Bloom, K.S. 2010. Transfers: Lessons from Indonesias Program Keluarga
Harapan in S.W. Handayani and C. Burkley. Social Assistance and Conditional Cash
Transfers: Proceedings of the Regional Workshop. Asian Development Bank.
Cecchini, S. and A. Madariaga. 2011. Conditional Cash Transfer Programmes:
The Recent Experience in Latin America and the Caribbean. United Nations
Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). Chile. United
Nations.
Cecchini, S. 2009. Do CCT Programmes Work in Low-Income Countries?
International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth One Pager No. 90. July 2009.
Available online at http://www.ipc-undp.org/pub/IPCOnePager90.pdf. Retrieved
December 18, 2011

De los Reyes, C. May 2011. CCT debt trap? Future of pro-poor deal a poser.
May 31, 2011. Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ). Available online
at http://pcij.org/stories/cct-debt-trap-future-of-pro-poor-deal-a-poser/ Retrieved
December 18, 2011.
Department of Social Welfare and Development. Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino
Program Briefer. Available online at
http://pantawid.dswd.gov.ph/images/stories/briefernew.pdf Retrieved December 18,
2011.
Department of Social Welfare and Development. December 2011. Pantawid
Pamilya Registers 2.3 Millionth Household Beneficiary. DSWD Social Marketing
Service. Available online at
http://www.dswd.gov.ph/index.php/component/content/article/1-latest-news/2461-pantawid-pamilya-registers-23-millionth-household-beneficiary Retrieved December
19,2011
Fernandez, Luisa and Rosechin Olfindo. May 2011. Overview of the
Philippines Conditional Cash Transfer Program: The Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino
Program ( Pantawid Pamilya). Philippine Social Protection Note. No. 2
Hoddinott, J. and L. Bassett. November 2008. Conditional Cash Transfer
Programs and Nutrition in Latin America: Assessment of Impacts and Strategies for
Improvement. Available online at http://ssrn.com/abstract=1305326 Retrieved
February 22, 2012.
Lindert, K., A. Linder, J. Hobbs, and B. dela Briere. 2007. The Nuts and Bolts of
Brazils Bolsa Familia Program: Implementing Conditional Cash Transfers in a
Decentralized Context. Social Protection Discussion Paper No. 0709. The World
Bank. National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC).
National Anti-Poverty Program (2010-2016) Part 1, Retrieved December
18,2011 at http://www.napc.gov.ph/National%20AntiPoverty
%20Program/National_Anti-Poverty_Program_Part1.pdf 15 National Anti-Poverty
Commission (NAPC).

National Anti-Poverty Program (2010-2016) Part 2, Retrieved December

18,2011 at http://www.napc.gov.ph/National%20AntiPoverty
%20Program/National_Anti-Poverty_Program_Part2.pdf
Reyes, C., C. Mina, A. Tabuga, R. Asis and M. Datu. 2011. Dynamics of Poverty
in the Philippines: Distinguishing the Chronic from the Transient Poor. PIDS
Discussion Paper 2011-31. Soares, S., R. Osorio, F.V.
Soares, M. Medeiros, and E. Zepeda. 2007. Conditional Cash Transfers in
Brazil, Chile, and Mexico: Impacts upon Inequality. International Poverty Centre
Working Paper No. 35.

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

This study is a significant tool that would open the hearts and mind of
the teachers, 4Ps recipients as well as their parents, and the government
itself to see the real scenario that is happening in our society in the midst of
the implementation of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program of the
government.

It tends to reveal the significant relation of the Pantawid Pamilyang

Pilipino Program to the academic performance and school attendance of the
recipients and to measure the effectiveness of the said program.

Chapter 2
METHODOLOGY AND RESEARCH DESIGN
In this paper, it is assumed that the decision to send children to school
is based on the household decision process. The analysis in the paper is
based on three alternative choices. Let Ci be a qualitative variable
representing the alternative choice made for a child in the ith household
such that: Ci = 1 if the child does not attend school Ci = 2 if the child goes to
school and also works in the labor market Ci = 3 if the child goes to school

but does not work in the labor market When Ci = 3, it does not preclude the
possibility that the child makes a contribution to unpaid domestic work at
home. We make an assumption that the variable Ci is determined on the
basis

of

household

socioeconomic

and

demographic

circumstances.

However, we do not account for how decisions about these occupational

choices are made within households. There can be cultural factors that
determine whether or not a child should study full-time or part-time, or not
study at all. We focus only on some observable factors that are likely to
impact on household behavior regarding childrens education. It is further
assumed that the household decision to send children to school (Ci ) is made
based on a utility function that is determined by household socioeconomic
and demographic characteristics. Suppose uij is the utility of the ith
household when it makes a choice that Ci = j, where j varies from 1 to 3. A
household makes a choice on the basis of maximum utility it derives from
that choice. For instance, the ith household will choose Ci = 2 in preference
to Ci = 1 if ui2 > ui1
The utility function depends on a number of factors including
characteristics of children such as age, gender, previous schooling, and their
potential earnings. Certain household characteristics also influence the utility
function, including age and gender of the household head, education of
parents, household size and composition, and presence of younger siblings in
the household. We can put all these variables together into a row vector zi .
The most important variable that affects the occupational choice of a child is
household income, which is the sum of household income (net of the childs
earnings) and the childs potential income. Suppose Xi is the household
income (without the childs earnings) and xi is the potential income of the
child. Accordingly, the household choice will depend on the sum (Xi + xi ).
Therefore, the utility function of the ith household making the jth choice can
be written as u z ij = + i j X x i i + +j i ej ( ) (1) The potential child
contribution to the household income denoted by xi is an important variable

that determines the household decision about child occupational choice. This
contribution depends on how much he/she can earn in the labor market and
also how much he/she can contribute to the household domestic work. The
childs contribution to domestic work is not known, and needs to be imputed.
The imputation of monetary value of domestic work has many pitfalls, and
requires strong assumptions. We have used the following methodology.2
Suppose wi is the actual earning of the child in the ith household and Ai is a
row vector of the child characteristic. Following BeckerMincer human capital
model, the earnings function is estimated by: log( ) w A i i = + D mi i +
(2) where Di is a dummy variable that takes the value 1 when Ci = 2, and 0
otherwise (i.e., when Ci = 1). Note that children who are studying full time
and not working in the labor marketfor which Ci = 3have been excluded
because they do not earn any income in the labor market. Further note that
the parameter m is expected to be negative because with given individual
characteristics of the child (Ai ), a child who is studying and working is
expected to earn less than a child who is not studying but only working. This
implies M = exp(m) < 1. The potential earnings of a child are determined by
the expected or predicted value of wi obtained from equation (2), which
gives us the following: ( w A ) i = exp i if Ci = 1 = ( M A ) exp i if Ci
= 2 = K A exp i ( ) if Ci = 3 (3) where M m = exp( ). For Ci = 3, while a
child is studying full-time and not working in the labor market, he/she may
be performing domestic work. Given the individual characteristic vector Ai ,
the child has the potential to earn exp(Ai ) income if he/she is working in
the labor market. Since the child is performing only domestic work, his/her
domestic work is assumed to be valued at K exp(Ai ), where K is greater
than 0 but less than 1. Substituting xi =wi from equation (3) into (1) gives u
z ij = + i j X x i j + + i j eij (4) where x A ( ) i = exp i , 1 1 = ,
2 2 = M and 3 3 = K (5) Equation (4) provides the utility of the ith
household under different occupational choices made for its children. If the
values of parameters , , and residuals are known, we can determine the
household choices using (4).