President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. issued an Executive Order to institutionalize and improve the Department of Social Welfare and Development's Oplan Pag-abot.

In a statement on Saturday, the Presidential Communications Office said Malacañang issued the EO 52 last Thursday to help the impoverished and vulnerable leave the streets and become contributing members of society.

To carry out the program, the EO established an interagency committee, whose members included agriculture, trade, labor, health, budget, and education departments. The chair and vice chair of the committee were the secretaries of the DSWD, the Department of the Interior and Local Government, respectively.

"The Pag-abot Program is hereby institutionalized as a platform for an enhanced and unified delivery of services to vulnerable and disadvantaged children, individuals, and families in street situations, through provision of social safety nets and protection against risks brought about by poverty," the EO read.

"It is imperative to institutionalize the program will ensure effective delivery of services towards addressing poverty and social and economic inequality in the country," the EO added.

The Pag-abot Program, which means to "reach," comprises component help packages that include cash support, livelihood assistance, employment assistance, transportation and relocation assistance, and assistance with temporary housing.

Other relevant forms of assistance are allowed under the EO, provided that they are "consistent with the mandates of concerned government agencies" and with applicable laws and regulations.

After ocular visits, beneficiary profiling, and service delivery, monitoring and follow-up are the last phase in delivering assistance under Pag-abot.

The inter-agency committee was tasked by Marcos with creating a digital monitoring system that would include a database of individual, family, and community beneficiaries as well as a monitoring framework.

The DSWD is responsible for figuring out how much money and additional staff the program needs.

The administration aims to execute policies and programs focused on logical economic and social change and fair distribution of regional development prospects under the AmBisyon Natin 2040, embodied in the Philippine Development Plan 2023–2028.

By putting in place nationally appropriate social protection systems and measures for everyone and granting equitable access to financial resources, especially for the underprivileged and vulnerable segments of society, the Philippines has committed to achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal No. 1—the eradication of poverty.

According to the PSA report from December 2023, 4.51 million Filipino households, or 16.4 percent of them, live below the P13,797 monthly poverty line.