The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD)-7 will start validating potential beneficiaries of the Duterte administration’s Unconditional Cash Transfer (UCT) program.
The program aims to help poor households in their daily living amid the increasing prices of goods and services as a result of the recently implemented Republic Act (R.A.) 10963 or the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (Train) Law, said Leah Quintana, DSWD-7 information officer.
“The mandate came from the President (Rodrigo Duterte) in lieu of the implementation of the Train law where poor families are affected. So that is why the government is giving a (monthly) subsidy amounting to P200 for 2018 and P300 for 2019 and 2020. We know that with the implementation of the Train law, prices of basic commodities have increased,” Quintana said.
She said that around 10 million poor households will benefit the UCT program which includes the current 4.4 million identified beneficiaries of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) and 3 million indigent senior citizens, under the social pension program of DSWD in the whole country.
The remaining 2.6 million potential beneficiaries will be identified through the National Household Targeting Unit (NHTU) or the Listahanan program of the department.
DSWD is also crafting guidelines for the distribution of the program.
Quintana said that DSWD-7’s Listahanan staff are currently on the process of screening applicants for validators who will do the validation of a total of 320,382 targeted poor households in the Central Visayas region.
She added that Region 7 has around 270,910 social pensioners and 288,273 Pantawid Pamilya beneficiaries.