MANILA, Philippines — Some 1.75 million Filipinos within the 'NCR Plus' have so far received financial aid, Social Welfare Secretary Rolando Bautista said Monday as he admitted that the rollout was off to a slow start.
At the weekly public meeting of the coronavirus task force, Bautista said this translates to P1.75 billion disbursed as of April 11 out of the P22.9-billion budget for it.
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Each qualified individual is supposed to receive P1,000, or a maximum of P4,000 for an entire family.
Figures by the DSWD chief showed that most of these so far came from Metro Manila with 1.57 million recipients, Rizal with 95,197, Cavite with 34,565, Laguna with 28,564 and Bulacan with 24,015.
Local governments began distributing the aid by April 6, Bautista said. Since then, photos on social media showed long lines of Filipinos lining up to receive the aid.
The numbers, he added, show that only 8% of funds had been disbursed so far.
"We see here that there really is a slow start of the rollout," he told President Rodrigo Duterte in Filipino. "But this was experienced too last year, that it is slow at first but becomes faster after four to five days."
Monitoring committees
Asked if how agencies are making sure that the aid is properly distributed, Bautista said a joint monitoring and inspection committee has been set up for every local government.
He said this body is made up of members from the DSWD, the Department of the Interior and Local Government, the Philippine National Police and government prosecutors.
Bautista said grievance committees were formed too for recipients who have concerns on the financial aid.
NCR Plus entered ECQ this April, but was reverted to Modified ECQ on Monday, April 12. It came despite the country continuing to see record-high increases in daily COVID-19 cases, with the total now at 876,225.