Over 87,000 UCT beneficiaries yet to claim cash aid

CEBU, Philippines — More than 87,000 beneficiaries of the Unconditional Cash Transfer (UCT), a new program of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), from Central Visayas have failed to claim their cash grant for this year.

With this, DSWD sets another schedule of payout this month so that all beneficiaries will get their grant.

DSWD-7 information officer Kerwin Macopia said at least 87,067 beneficiaries have not yet claimed their cash grants through over-the-counter distribution.

He said some of these beneficiaries are social pensioners (or indigent senior citizens) who are already bedridden and were not able to visit the offsite payment. They could have been accompanied by their family members or relatives.

Another reason, he added, is that the head or the facilitator of the beneficiaries was absent during the payout.

Macopia said DSWD-7 decided to make another round of payout starting this November 15.

Moreover, Macopia advised the beneficiaries with unclaimed cash grants to wait for the announcement of the exact day of payout that is set for their respective city or town.

He said DSWD-7 has hired “notifiers,” or staff that will visit and coordinate with the different local government units in order to have an orderly distribution of the cash grants.

The agency targets to distribute the cash grants to all the beneficiaries before the year ends, he said.

As of now, he said the DSWD-7 has already disbursed over P1.4 billion for this year’s implementation of the UCT program.

Macopia said based on the October 31 data, a sum of 591,158 UCT beneficiaries each received P2,400 cash grant.

Of the total number, at least 284,310 Pantawid Pamilya beneficiaries were given via their cash cards. These are the original grantees of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program or 4Ps, which is the conditional cash transfer program for the "poorest of the poor" families.

The other UCT beneficiaries that have claimed their grant were the at least 124,849 social pensioners and the 181,999 poor families identified in the latest household survey.

The UCT is a component of the national government's Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) program that aims to assist indigent Filipinos that will be affected by the rising prices because of the implementation of the new tax reform program.

As stipulated in the TRAIN act, DSWD will implement the UCT scheme for three years. It will release P2,400 (P200 per month) in 2018 and a total of P3,600 (P300 per month) in 2019 and in 2020. P24 billion has been earmarked for the 2018 UCT implementation in the fiscal year 2018 General Appropriations Act. (FREEMAN)