Isko Moreno: Nearly 172,000 poor families already given subsidy

MANILA, Philippines — The city of Manila is on schedule to finish the distribution of cash aid from the social amelioration program as close to 172,000 low-income families in the locality already received the assistance as of May 9.

This was revealed by Manila Mayor Francisco “Isko Moreno” Domagoso during Saturday’s Laging Handa press briefing, stressing that 93% of the city’s 185,000 poor households so far got the P8,000 financial subsidy from the national government.

Out of 610,000 families in Manila City, the Department of Social Welfare and Development has allotted 185,000 low-income families to the local government under the social amelioration program, Moreno explained.

“So far, we have about 171,961 families ang nabigyan na sa Lungsod ng Maynila (who were given the cash aid in Manila City) as of 7 a.m. this morning, so we are now at 93 percent. More or less we will meet and reach the deadline,” Moreno said.

He also assured that they were able to distribute the cash aid without violating health protocols as they observe social distancing and house-to-house delivery of the money as much as possible.

The Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) has twice moved the deadline for the complete distribution of the cash aid – first to May 7 and then to May 10 – from the originally set April 30 cutoff.