The Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program is a social  protection program that aims to build the capacities of poor Filipino  families to cross the poverty line thru human capital investment. The 4Ps  Act, specifically Section 4, defines 4Ps as the national poverty reduction  strategy and a human capital investment program that provides conditional  cash transfer for a maximum of 7 years to poor households to improve the  health, nutrition, and education aspect of their lives. 4Ps as the national  poverty reduction strategy serves as the centerpiece social protection  program in which the various poverty reduction programs of the different  national government agencies converge. As a human capital investment program,  the 4Ps provide cash grants to poor households so that the parents of poor  families have an added means to keep sending their children to schools and  health facilities so they may grow up healthy and educated.

The  Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program’s goal is to break the intergenerational  cycle of poverty by fostering the necessary behavior among parents to  adequately perform their parental duties and responsibilities, particularly  investing in the children’s future through education, health, and nutrition.  Low school and high malnutrition rates are strongly associated with the  poverty cycle in the Philippines. With the enactment of Republic Act 11310 or  the 4Ps Act, there is now an expanded focus on health, education, and  well-being to a sustainable path to financial independence.

Spot Check is an integral part of Pantawid Pamilya’s monitoring and evaluation system, designed to be conducted on an  annual basis to ensure effective and efficient program implementation.

For  this 18th round of spot checks (Spot Check 2022),  the following aspects of program implementation were given priority and  special focus. It includes the following:

1. Service satisfaction with City/Municipal Links, Education  partners, Health Facility partners, LGU officials, and Land Bank offices– In  addition to surfacing verifiable operations issues and challenges, this spot  check will capture the beneficiaries’ subjective assessment, their level of  satisfaction with the service of implementing partners along a more standardized set of key performance indicators for each partner agency;
2. Partners’ support on 4Ps Program (esp. Kilos Unlad);
3. Mainstreaming of MCCT beneficiaries;
4. Compliance monitoring in Education and Health in the new normal;
5. Conduct of Electronic - Family Development Sessions (e-FDS);
6. Case Management;
7.  Unliquidated cash grants and non-moving accounts (NMA), if any,  – This spot check would want to know how and why there are still issues on  liquidation, reporting, and the existence of non-moving accounts, and pending  conversion of cash cards into EMV cards and how LBP is addressing these  issues on the ground;
8. Shifting to Digital Payment;
9. Awareness, Accessibility, and Satisfaction on Grievance  channels;
10. Provision of Support Services Intervention (SSI); and
11.  Disaster-risk management and Pandemic Response – with the  occurrence of the COVID-19 pandemic, this spot check will look into the  health and common practices of the beneficiaries in preventing getting  COVID-19. This spot check will also assess the availability of supplies to  prevent transmission of the COVID-19 virus and the receipt, views, and opinions on the ongoing vaccination against the COVID-19 virus.

Spot Check 2022 entailed  the conduct  of around 1,282  face-to-face interviews among regular  conditional cash transfer (RCCT) and MCCT household  beneficiaries, and parent leaders; and a maximum of  204 in-person interviews among various  stakeholders involved  in 4Ps implementation such as city/municipal  links, 4Ps Regional Project Management Office’s personnel/officers, local government units, elementary and high  schools; rural  health units, barangay health stations; and Land Bank’s local servicing branch officers. For a nationwide representation, the spot check covers four areas; one NCR district and three provinces covering the Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao regions.

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