Updated @ 1:31 a.m., April 29, 2020
MANILA, Philippines – A total of t 1,515 local government units (LGUs) have received P80.7 billion worth of funds for COVID-19 pandemic assistance, the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) said on Tuesday.
According to the DSWD, this data, accurate as of April 27, represents 98.8% of the funds allocated for the social amelioration program (SAP).
Of this number, P16.4 billion was already given to Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) beneficiaries with cash cards.
Another P23.8 billion has been distributed by local government units to low income families who are not part of the 4Ps, while P36.4 million was provided to 4Ps beneficiaries who had not registered their cash cards.
Assistance to P323.3 million was also handed out to public utility vehicle (PUV) drivers and and drivers of transport network vehicle service (TNVS) providers in the National Capital Region.
All in all, P43 billion of the P80.7 billion funds given to LGUs has already reached the target households. This translates to over 3.731 million 4Ps beneficiaries, 4.502 million beneficiaries from the LGUs’ list, and 40,418 TNVS and PUV drivers.
The SAP is intended to help workers who lost their jobs after the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) was placed over Luzon due to the rising COVID-19 cases.
Under the Bayanihan to Heal As One Act of 2020, 18 million Filipinos will receive P5,000 to P8,000 per month, depending on the minimum wage per region.
After work was suspended except for essential frontline services, workers who rely on daily earnings and whose jobs cannot adjust to a work-from-home setup have been left without any income amid the lockdown.
This announcement from DSWD came days before the deadline for the SAP distribution on April 30. Recently, government officials including Interior Secretary Eduardo Año reminded LGUs that financial aid should already be disbursed before the deadline.
However, Año also noted that some LGUs are seeking an extension of the deadline, on the grounds that some are taking more time to finish their distribution.
As of this writing, the Duterte administration has decided that an ECQ would remain over Metro Manila and other areas with high coronavirus infection rates, while the rest would be under a general community quarantine.
The Department of Health said on Tuesday that there are now 7,958 patients infected with the coronavirus nationwide, of which 530 have died and 975 have recovered.
Worldwide, over 3.04 million individuals have been infected, while at least 210,913 have died from the disease and over 889,406 have recovered from it.
/atm