Pensioners are excluded from the government’s two-month emergency subsidy for the low-income households heavily affected by the Luzon-wide quarantine due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic, Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) said on Monday.
IATF-IED spokesperson and Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles said only indigent senior citizens from poor families will be receiving subsidies ranging from PHP5,000 to PHP8,000 under the government’s PHP200-billion Emergency Subsidy Program.
“Ang uunahin natin na senior citizens siyempre yung mga indigent senior citizens (The senior citizens we will prioritize are the indigent senior citizens),” he said in a virtual presser on Monday.
Nograles also urged families not to cheat their way into receiving cash assistance, stressing that the emergency subsidy will be given per family only.
“(It’s) per family basis, hindi mo ‘yan (it’s not) per member of the family,” he said, urging them to practice self-assessment.
The grant of emergency subsidy to 18 million low-income families is provided for in Republic Act 11469 or the Bayanihan to Heal as One Act that was signed by President Rodrigo Duterte on March 24.
Of the 18 million families, about 4.3 million families are recipients of the PHP2,140 monthly subsidy from the conditional cash transfer (CCT) component of the Department of Social Welfare and Development’s (DSWD) Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps).
DSWD earlier said 4Ps beneficiaries will not receive the entire amount of emergency subsidy as allocated for their region, since the cash assistance will only be given as an additional to what they will already receive under the conditional cash transfer program.
Families qualified to receive the Social Amelioration Program (SAP) Bayanihan Fund: Tulong Laban sa Covid-19 are the underprivileged sector and homeless families, indigent indigenous peoples, other vulnerable groups; workers in the informal sector or self-employed; rice farmers; senior citizens; person with disability; pregnant or lactating woman; solo parent; and overseas Filipino in distress.
The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), with assistance from local government units (LGUs), have already started distributing cash assistance to low-income households last week.
LGUs are in-charge of submitting their databases of target beneficiaries to the national government and distribute “social amelioration cards” to those eligible to get subsidy.
Earlier, DSWD said beneficiaries of the 4Ps c in National Capital Region, Cordillera Administrative Region, Calabarzon, BARMM, Regions 1, 2, and 3 received their emergency subsidies on April 3.
On the other hand, beneficiaries from Regions 4-B, 5, 6, 7 and 9 received their subsidies on April 4 while 4Ps recipients in Regions 8, 10, 11, 12, and Caraga also received their emergency subsidy on Sunday (April 5).
Nograles assured that all discrepancies involving the distribution of emergency subsidy will be immediately investigated. (PNA)
