State policy and declared intent
- The State must uplift the standard of living and quality of life of the poor and provide sustained opportunities for growth and development (Section 2).
- The State must adopt an area-based, sectoral, and focused intervention to poverty alleviation where every poor Filipino is empowered to meet minimum basic needs through partnership of government and basic sectors (Section 2).
- The State must comply with international obligations to end poverty in all its forms and ensure and promote health and well-being of all (Section 2).
- The State must prioritize investments in anti-poverty programs, ensure full access to government services for the poor, strengthen interventions addressing genuine concerns of the poor, and institutionalize long-term strategies for empowerment (Section 2).
- The State must enhance and promote capabilities of basic sectors, NGOs, POs, and other development partners for effective delivery of anti-poverty programs and basic services through government strategies and collaboration (Section 2).
Key definitions under the Act
- “Basic Sectors” include disadvantaged sectors of Philippine society: farmer-peasants, fisherfolk, workers in the formal sector (including migrant workers), workers in the informal sector, indigenous peoples and cultural communities, women, persons with disability, senior citizens, victims of calamities/natural and human-induced disasters, youth and students, children, urban poor, and members of cooperatives (Section 3(a)).
- “Development Partners” are NGOs, POs, and private organizations and corporations engaged in programs and activities aimed at alleviating the condition of the poor (Section 3(b)).
- “Hazardous/Danger Zones” are areas that, when occupied for residential or business purposes, pose danger to life and safety of occupants or the general public (Section 3(c)).
- “Nongovernment Organizations (NGOs)” are duly registered nonstock, nonprofit organizations focusing on upliftment of the basic sectors through advocacy, training, community organizing, research, access to resources, environmental protection, natural resources conservation, and similar activities (Section 3(d)).
- “People’s Organizations (POs)” are self-help groups belonging to basic sectors composed of members having a common bond of interest who voluntarily join to achieve a lawful common social or economic end (Section 3(e)).
- “Poor” refers to individuals or families whose income falls below the poverty threshold defined by NEDA and/or who cannot, in a sustained manner, afford minimum basic needs of food, health, education, housing, or other essential amenities of life, as defined under Republic Act No. 8425; in determining who constitute the poor, the Multidimensional Poverty Index determined by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) is considered (Section 3(f)).
- “National Poverty Reduction Plan (NPRP)” is the aggregation and consolidation of sectoral and local plans through a bottom-Up approach, from Local Poverty Reduction Action Plan to formulation of the national plan (Section 3(g)).
- “Progressive Realization” is implementation paced according to availability of funds and adjusted to exigencies of the times (Section 3(h)).
Scope: rights of the poor and duties
- The government must establish a system of progressive realization/implementation to provide requirements, conditions, and opportunities for full enjoyment and realization of the rights of the poor essential to poverty alleviation (Section 4).
- The Act establishes enforceable rights and tasks for implementing agencies under each right: Adequate Food, Decent Work, Relevant and Quality Education, Adequate Housing, and the Highest Attainable Standard of Health (Section 4).
Right to adequate food obligations
- Individuals or families have a Right to Adequate Food: physical and economic access to adequate and healthy food or the means to procure it (Section 4(a)).
- The DSWD, DA, and other concerned implementing agencies must mitigate and alleviate hunger, especially in times of calamities/natural and human-induced disasters (Section 4(a)(1)).
- The agencies must fully implement and maintain supplementary feeding programs in day care centers and schools (Section 4(a)(2)).
- The agencies must ensure availability, accessibility, and sustainability of food supplies in quantity and quality sufficient to meet dietary needs of poor individuals and families (Section 4(a)(3)).
- The agencies must proactively engage the poor in activities intended to promote food self-sufficiency and strengthen access to resources and means to ensure food security (Section 4(a)(4)).
Right to decent work and labor requirements
- Individuals and families have a Right to Decent Work: the opportunity to obtain decent and productive employment in conditions of freedom, equity, gender equality, security, and human dignity (Section 4(b)).
- The DOLE and other concerned implementing agencies must ensure access of the poor to information on employment openings in private enterprises and government programs and projects, especially for families displaced by calamities/disasters or relocated from hazardous/danger zones (Section 4(b)(1)).
- The agencies must ensure compliance by private contractors and subcontractors in national and local public work projects, funded by national government or any LGU, to fill thirty percent (30%) of skilled labor requirements with qualified workers who come from the poor sector and are residents of the LGUs where the projects are undertaken (Section 4(b)(2)).
- Where available resources are less than the required 30%, the skilled labor requirements must be based on the maximum number of locally available labor resources, certified by the municipal, city, provincial or district engineer as sufficient compliance (Section 4(b)(2)).
- The agencies must promote livelihood among the poor through technical and administrative support to help establish livelihood enterprises (Section 4(b)(3)).
- The agencies must ensure compliance with core labor standards, address job and skills mismatch, and enhance human capital through education and training (Section 4(b)(4)).
- The agencies must provide an environment for more inclusive tripartism to achieve broad-based representation of interests and participatory decision-making through social dialogue at firm and industry levels (Section 4(b)(5)).
Right to relevant and quality education
- Individuals and families have a Right to Relevant and Quality Education: the right to attain the full development of the human person (Section 4(c)).
- DepEd, CHED, and TESDA, in coordination with development partners, must maintain a system of free public education in kindergarten, elementary, and high school levels (Section 4(c)(1)).
- They must make higher education accessible to poor individuals and families by expanding programs of free or socialized college education to the poor, including student loans or study-now-pay-later plans, in state/local universities and colleges subject to reasonable academic requirements (Section 4(c)(2)).
- They must ensure access to quality technical-vocational education and training through scholarships, subsidies, and financial assistance to ensure access to decent and productive employment, subject to compliance with qualification requirements (Section 4(c)(3)).
Right to adequate housing directives
- Individuals and families have a Right to Adequate Housing: a decent, affordable, safe, and culturally appropriate place to live with dignity and security of tenure in accordance with Republic Act No. 7279, the “Urban Development and Housing Act of 1992”, with access to basic services, facilities, and livelihood (Section 4(d)).
- The HUDCC and other concerned implementing agencies must prioritize socialized housing implementation with identified appropriate subsidies (Section 4(d)(1)).
- They must immediately construct and provide housing facilities for families living in identified hazardous/danger zones and on areas affected by disasters/calamities when housing needs of the poor are urgent (Section 4(d)(2)).
- They must create an enabling environment to assist the poor gain access to security of tenure with the least financial burden (Section 4(d)(3)).
- They must provide a system with simple requirements and procedures and expeditious processing and approval, especially for community-based socialized housing/people’s proposals (Section 4(d)(4)).
Right to highest attainable health
- Individuals and families have the Right to the Highest Attainable Standard of Health: equitable access to facilities, goods, services, and conditions necessary for realization of the highest attainable standard of health (Section 4(e)).
- The DOH and other concerned implementing agencies must ensure equitable access to a system of good quality health care and protection that is also available and accessible to the poor within reasonable standards (Section 4(e)(1)).
- They must provide comprehensive, universal, culture-sensitive, non-discriminatory, and gender-responsive health services and programs, including:
- maternal and child health care and nutrition (Section 4(e)(2)(i)),
- access to ethical, legal, medically safe and effective reproductive health services and supplies (Section 4(e)(2)(ii)),
- promotion of breastfeeding (Section 4(e)(2)(iii)),
- prevention and management of reproductive tract infections, sexually transmitted diseases including HIV and AIDS (Section 4(e)(2)(iv)),
- immunization against major infectious diseases occurring in the community (Section 4(e)(2)(v)),
- prevention, treatment and control of epidemic and endemic diseases (Section 4(e)(2)(vi)) (Section 4(e)(2)).
- They must reduce the financial burden of health care and protection of the poor through a socialized health insurance program with the end view of totally eliminating out-of-pocket expenses (Section 4(e)(3)).
- They must provide health-related education and information to the community (Section 4(e)(4)).
Non-diminution, social protection, and targeting
- Non-diminution applies: all other rights of the poor under existing laws remain in full force and effect, and the poor may avail of greater rights offered by existing laws including those under the Act (Section 5).
- The government must implement a sustainable mechanism to build an effective social protection system to ensure access of the poor to protection from any risk or contingency (Section 6).
- The social protection system must include social insurance, safety nets, social services, and labor market interventions, made affordable and accessible (Section 6).
- Social protection must be pursued in and during bilateral and multilateral negotiations, including arrangements entered with international financial institutions (Section 6).
- The NEDA must maintain and periodically review, in consultation with PSA, a single system of classification for targeting beneficiaries of government poverty alleviation programs and projects (Section 7).
- The DSWD, in coordination with NEDA and the NAPC, must identify the target beneficiaries (Section 7).
Planning, participation, and budgeting
- All government agencies must formulate, within one hundred (100) days from issuance of the rules and regulations, a comprehensive and convergent plan to set thresholds to be achieved for each recognized right of the poor (Section 8).
- The NPRP must consider development plans of provinces, cities, and municipalities (Section 8).
- The NAPC, with technical assistance of NEDA, must compile and harmonize the plans (Section 8).
- The DBM must review the NPRP for inclusion in the budget of implementing agencies (Section 8).
- The NAPC must ensure engagement of basic sectors and LGUs in formulation and implementation of the NPRP (Section 9).
- The DILG must monitor LGU compliance in aligning development, investment, and poverty reduction plans with the NPRP and in implementing it (Section 9).
Funding sources and preferential allocations
- Poverty alleviation programs and projects implemented under the Act must be sourced from existing appropriations authorized under the General Appropriations Act (GAA) of departments and agencies implementing these programs, including listed pro-poor programs (Section 10).
- The Act enumerates the following program funding sources under Section 10(a) through (i):
- DSWD: Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) and Sustainable livelihood Program (SUP), and Kapit-Bisig Laban sa Kahivapan-Comprehensive and Integrated Delivery of Social Services National Community Driven Development Program (KALAHI-CIDSS NCDDP);
- DOLE: Special Program for Employment of Students (SPES) and Tulong Panghanapbuhay sa Ating Disadvantagod Workers “TUPAD” Project;
- TESDA: Skills Training, Private Education Student Financial Assistance (PESFA), and the Training for Work Scholarship Program (TWSP);
- DepEd: Alternative Learning System (ALS) and Government Assistance to Students and Teachers in Private Education (GASTPE);
- CHED: Student Financial Assistance Program (STUFAP);
- National Housing Authority (NHA): Socialized housing program;
- DOH: Basic health care services;
- Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth): Expanded Primary Care Package for the Poor and Senior Citizens;
- Social Housing Finance Corporation (SHFC): Community Mortgage Program for qualified organized informal settlers.
- Allocations for implementation of these programs and projects must receive preferential consideration in the funding allocation of the agency budget (Section 10).
- Any additional funds to the existing appropriations of pro-poor programs must be included in the GAA (Section 10).
Private participation and tax exemptions
- The private sector is encouraged as an active partner in financing and implementing poverty alleviation programs and projects (Section 11).
- Government agencies implementing these programs must be authorized to accredit development partners who may accept donations, aids or grants in cash or in kind from duly accredited sources to meet demands and uphold the basic rights of the poor (Section 11).
- Acceptance and use of donations, aids, or grants must be transparent and subject to applicable government regulations (Section 11).
- Donations, contributions, and grants made to programs implemented under the NPRP are exempt from the donor’s tax under the National Internal Revenue Code of 1997, as amended by Republic Act No. 10963 (“Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion”) (Section 12).
Progressive realization implementation and funding allocation
- Implementation of the Act follows the Principle of Progressive Realization (Section 13).
- The President and Congress have the prerogative to allocate funds to all poverty alleviation programs through the GAA as they may deem necessary (Section 13).
- The Act does not require the government to undertake immediate implementation of all poverty alleviation programs (Section 13).
Compliance reporting and implementing rules
- The NAPC must oversee and monitor compliance with the Act (Section 14).
- Implementing departments and agencies must submit a compliance report to the NAPC within six (6) months from the Act’s effectivity, and then every six (6) months thereafter (Section 14).
- The NAPC must submit a compliance report to the House Committee on Poverty Alleviation and the Senate Committee on Social Justice, Welfare and Rural Development (Section 14).
- Within six (6) months from effectivity, the NAPC must, in coordination with government departments and agencies with participation of LGUs and basic sectors, promulgate rules and regulations to carry out the Act (Section 15).
Separability and repealing provisions
- If any section or provision is declared unconstitutional or invalid, the remaining sections or provisions continue in full force and effect (Section 16).
- All laws, decrees, executive orders, proclamations, rules and regulations, or parts inconsistent with the Act are repealed, amended, or modified accordingly (Section 17).