ILOILO City – The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) in Region 6 has started its validation of target beneficiaries – 265,010 households – for its Unconditional Cash Transfer (UCT) Program.
The UCT is an outright subsidy to the poor that aims to “alleviate the impact of the excise tax on fuel and sugar,” said Perla Haro, DSWD-6 Policy and Plans Division chief.
Unlike the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) that as conditions which beneficiaries must fulfill, there are none in the UCT.
DSWD was given the responsibility to distribute the P200 per month UCT to 10 million poor Filipinos across the country.
This program will last for three years – P2,400 (or P200 per month) will be released in 2018 and P3,600 (or P300 per month) in 2019 and in 2020.
For the 2018 UCT implementation, P24 billion has been earmarked. Of this figure, 4.4 million are 4Ps beneficiaries.
Also included in the UCT beneficiaries are three million indigent senior citizens who are also beneficiaries of the DSWD Social Pension Program.
“We have recently oriented and trained 883 UCT validators and 133 administrative aides to ensure their effectiveness during the validation,” said Haro.
Local government units will help in the validation and program implementation, she added.
The validation is expected to last for 45 days, with the final list to be out by May, and the distribution of the cash grants to be done by June 2018. (DSWD-6/PN)
