Cash with conditions
The first time I heard about the Millennium Challenge Compact, I thought it was similar to the blood compact in my history subject back in high school. Furthermore, the “CCT” also confused me as an acronym of a computer tech hub group or a culinary institution. I was wrong on both assumptions – it stands for “conditional cash transfer.”
As it is, one might assume that “conditional cash transfer” is a finance term which describes a bank transaction. It is partly correct for CCT is indeed a financial term. Yet it is relatively complex, if compared to a simple bank transaction.
I am tempted to join the debate over this issue in spite of the more significant issues at hand which likewise require attention and opinion. But this CCT has sparked debate on organizations belonging to the sector of non-government which many are fond of calling itself civil society.
The way the debate is unfolding within the cloistered ranks of non-government offers a picture of how this issue will come to its close. I stand witness to the heated debate regarding the PEACe Bonds or the Poverty Alleviation and Eradication Certificates which heavily benefited its proponent and the more dominant civil society organizations under its network.
The CCT came into existence, not as a genuine idea hatched by the great minds of our Filipino leaders, but rather a concept copied from other countries that somehow embarked on “poverty alleviation initiatives” (how I hate the term) with the end view of minimizing poverty or poverty incidence. Substantially, this CCT is aimed to make the country come closer to rubbing elbows in achieving its Millennium Development Goals.
I will be revisiting the issue of the PEACe Bonds. However, I will tackle similar issues being debated upon today in a series of discussions. First, what is this Millennium Challenge Compact; second, what is this CCT all about; third, what now is the state of poverty nine years after the PEACe Bonds.
President PNoy is seriously being criticized together with the prominent civil society personalities under his administration for it is him who signed the Millennium Challenge Compact (MCC) with Hillary Clinton, the Secretary of the State of the United States government under Barack Obama.
This Compact is characterized by blanket commitments which could “bind the Philippines to same political and economic policies that caused it to weaken in the last half century,” says Ric Reyes, newly elected national president of the Freedom from Debt Coalition.
The MCC is a $434-million compact grant agreement of the Millennium Challenge Corp. of the United States government. Ric Reyes refers to it as a “Trojan Horse.”
Reyes cited Section 3.2-c of the signed Covenant which states that from now on, “no law or regulation in the Philippines” will “prevent or hinder” the government’s obligations under the Compact and “any other related agreement or any transaction.”
I must agree with Ric Reyes when he said that the Millennium Challenge grant is a dangerous gift to receive.
It is a dangerous gift indeed for no less than US President Barack Obama has declared during the United Nations Poverty Summit in New York that “development aid” is actually a “core pillar” of American power that will advance US economic interests. Next issue is on the CCT.
Email: peoplesdomain@yahoo.com
