Poverty, a perpetually festering wound, has long paralyzed the Philippines. Deprived of access to quality education, healthcare, and employment, millions of Filipinos remain trapped in a relentless cycle of hardship and dependence. A supposed solution eventually emerged—neatly wrapped in an acronym: the 4Ps, or the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program. Launched in 2008 and institutionalized in 2019, 4Ps was envisioned as a bold strategy to break the intergenerational cycle of poverty. It aimed to provide financial assistance to the poorest households in exchange for compliance with health checkups, school attendance, and family development seminars. The logic was simple: empower through education and health, and long-term change would follow.
In a perfect world, the 4Ps would have lifted entire generations out of poverty. Children would have graduated, secured jobs, and escaped the economic conditions their parents and grandparents endured. Communities would be healthier, and government social workers would feel fulfilled, not overburdened. The cycle would have been broken, not prolonged.
But the disparaging reality is far from ideal. Despite over a decade of operation and billions in funding, the 4Ps program has not eliminated poverty. Worse, it increasingly exhausts the very social workers and personnel tasked with keeping it alive. It has become a band-aid stretched thin over a complex, gaping issue—one that demands structural reform, not symbolic intervention.
In the folds of the system
In discussions surrounding 4Ps, focus rarely falls on those working behind the curtains: social workers, the backbone of its implementation, and the first to witness the cracks in its foundation.
Over the program’s 17-year lifespan, social workers have labored at its heart, all while contending with the systemic flaws that hinder meaningful progress. From constant household visits to facilitation of various beneficiary activities, they shoulder a demanding responsibility. Yet, in return, they relentlessly contend with resource constraints and administrative struggles. Delayed salaries, staffing shortages, and negligent caseload management have become recurring realities that add strain on the already overextended workers.
What’s more troubling is that these aren’t isolated cases—they are the norm that social workers face in the name of carrying out the state’s flagship anti-poverty program. In the absence of essential support from the government, many are forced to compensate for the system’s shortcomings through personal effort. Such commitment, however, is rarely met with gratitude, least of all from the institutions they serve.
Nevertheless, despite burnout and meager compensation, social workers persist, driven by a sense of honor for the communities they serve. But even the most dedicated efforts cannot sustain a program that leans too heavily on the shoulders of those upholding it.
Aid that anchors
As social workers bear the brunt of the program’s demands, beneficiaries continue to endure the very poverty that 4Ps was meant to eradicate. While the program has improved school attendance and health checkup compliance among children, multiple studies reveal that its impact on long-term poverty alleviation remains insufficient.
For one, a 2022 Commission on Audit report revealed that after seven to 13 years of implementation and P537 billion in grants disbursed, approximately 90 percent of active 4Ps beneficiary households remain below the poverty threshold. Even more concerning, only 32,331 households, or less than one percent, have “graduated” from poverty. This stark finding exposes a glaring disconnect: while the program meets conditional targets—children attending school, families visiting health centers—it fails to empower its wards economically.
Beneficiary families, across multiple case studies, remain grateful for the program. But many deem it lacking. The conditional cash grants do motivate them to attend school and seek medical checkups, but they do little to break them free from destitution. It shows how the 4Ps, in effect, enforce dependency instead of building self-reliance. Without pairing aid with more stable support systems, like employment and social security, 4Ps risks becoming a cycle of mere subsistence rather than a pathway out of poverty. Thus, it sustains life, but rarely transforms it.
Moving past paper promises
The 4Ps program was never meant to be the sole solution to poverty. But many hoped it would be the spark. Instead of bringing about meaningful change, it flickers beneath the weight of bureaucracy, too reluctant to confront the very roots of inequalities. For the Philippines to shatter the pattern, we must remember that poverty is not just a metric to track or a target to tick off. Poverty is a lived condition shaped by a history of systemic neglect and superficial solutions. And when institutions treat it as deadlines to meet on paper instead of truly listening to the people’s demands, they fail not only the families they intend to uplift, but also the workers who keep those systems alive.
To do justice to 4Ps, we must return to its core promise: helping families cross the poverty line, not just cling to the edge of survival. But for change to begin, the government must first confront the reality that its program is running on the exhaustion of its frontliners, because no anti-poverty effort can succeed if the very people driving it are left behind at the margins they were meant to mend.
By shifting the lens from short-term fixes to long-term empowerment, we offer the chance to redefine what the acronym could stand for. A program that protects the welfare of its workers. An institution that provides the public with real opportunities over conditional aid. And most importantly, a solution that persists in solidarity, rather than a palliative patch over a deep, untreated wound. The promise of 4Ps must grow beyond survival and into a system that stands with its people, both those who serve and are served, not only in policy but also in their everyday lives.
This article was published in The LaSallian‘s Marcos Presidency Midterm Special. To read more, visit bit.ly/TLSMarcosMidtermSpecial.
