ABSTRACT
The Philippine government has provided massive support to the conditional cash transfer (CCT) program despite its underwhelming development outcomes. This chapter argues that this is because CCT has proved useful to neo-liberal policy makers as it is seen to mitigate the worst consequences of their laissez faire development strategy that has resulted in high levels of poverty and inequality. Furthermore, CCT enjoys broad clientelistic appeal as it lends political legitimacy to politicians as they are seen to be doing something about the poverty situation. It is this convergence of interests between neo-liberal technocrats and clientelistic politicians that has made the allure of CCT difficult to resist.
