Some of the estimated 80,000 beneficiaries at the Cebu Technological Univeristy gym for President Rodrigo Duterte, who will distribute the cash grants to the beneficiaries. | Delta Dyrecka Letigio
CEBU CITY, Philippines — At least 780,000 households in Central Visayas are expected to receive their Unconditional Cash Transfer (UCT) grant of P2,400 before the end of March.
Shalaine Marie Lucero, Department of Social Welfare and Development assistant director for operations, described the UCT as a mitigation measure brought about by the implementation of the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) Law in 2017.
Households that meet the criteria for the UCT are usually social pensioners, beneficiaries of the Pantawid Pamilya, and the Listahan programs of the DSWD.
The P2,400 cash grant is the beneficiaries’ one year share of UCT for 2018 and this will be increased to P3,600 or a P300 per month cash grant for 2019 and 2020.
Read more: DSWD-7 disburses over P1.4B for unconditional cash transfer program
Lucero said that in Central Visayas 640,117 households had already received their grants as of February 24 rendering the DSWD-7 a distribution rate of 84 percent.
On Sunday afternoon, February 24, President Rodrigo Duterte is expected to distribute the UCT to 1, 500 beneficiaries in Cebu City.
Read more: Cebu City beneficiaries set to receive national gov’t cash grant
Lucero said that they were hoping to distribute all the cash grants before the end of March so that they could start preparing for the distribution of the 2019 payout.
Lucero admitted that the distribution for 2018 was incomplete because some of the listed households no longer qualified for the programs or have moved residences. The list used was still dated 2015.
She said that to prevent this in 2019, they would conduct a list cleansing program before they would distribute this year’s UCT.
Lucero hopes that on the 2019 distribution of the UCT, they could reach a 100 percent distribution rate.