President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has issued a new executive directive allowing specific beneficiaries of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) to keep receiving state aid even after surpassing the program’s standard seven-year cap.
Signed on July 13, Executive Order No. 120 grants a prolonged period of financial aid to qualified households whose eligibility would have otherwise run out under Republic Act No. 11310, also known as the 4Ps Act.
According to the directive, recipients whose legal timeframe for cash transfers expires “shall continue to be qualified as 4Ps beneficiaries and receive program benefits beyond such period.”
This prolonged aid is specifically reserved for beneficiaries “as long as they remain classified by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) as Level 1 (survival) or Level 2 (subsistence) under the Social Welfare and Development Indicator (SWDI) tool.”
In greenlighting the policy, the President emphasized the necessity of backing families grappling with extraordinary challenges, ensuring they are not cut off from government aid before achieving the self-reliance intended by the legislation.
The executive order acts on a formal proposal by the National Advisory Council (NAC) to stretch the assistance timeline for households set back by unusual hardships.
The council’s resolution pointed out the lingering economic damage caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, emphasizing that the health crisis “severely disrupted household incomes, reversed developmental gains, heightened beneficiary vulnerability, and limited the ability of affected beneficiaries to fully realize the intended outcomes of the program within the seven-year period.”
Under the new order, the DSWD must reinforce its case management approach using an upgraded version of the Social Welfare and Development Indicator tool alongside supplementary evaluation systems. These tools will track the well-being of households and verify if they are genuinely prepared to graduate from the system.
The DSWD is also responsible for formulating and publishing the operational rules—including verification and selection protocols for the extended benefits—within 30 days of the order taking effect.
Additionally, the agency must run routine checkups and deploy targeted support programs to gauge whether families still need extended welfare or are ready to transition out.
Funding for the prolonged assistance will be drawn directly from the DSWD’s current approved budget.