By Annabel Consuelo Petinglay/PNA
SAN JOSE DE BUENAVISTA, Antique — Recipients of the unconditional cash transfer (UCT) who are not included in the list of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program’s (4Ps) regular beneficiaries will each receive a PHP300 monthly cash grant this year.
Jeffrey Gabucay, Pantawid Provincial Link, said in an interview Thursday the increase of the UCT from PHP200 last year to PHP300 this 2019 is intended to mitigate the economic impact due to the implementation of the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) II.
“The UCT beneficiaries would be provided financial assistance one time hopefully by second quarter of this year,” Gabucay said.
He said the UCT amount of PHP300 per month per beneficiary is being summed up for the whole year and released entirely in one setting, just like last year.
He added that in 2018, there were 18,115 UCT household beneficiaries in Antique with a total budget of PHP43.47 million.
“We expect about the same number of UCT beneficiaries this year,” he said.
Meanwhile, Gabucay said the cash grant for the 26,767 regular Pantawid beneficiaries in the province will be released starting the third week of January.
He said that the cash grant set to be released is still under Period 5 covering October to November 2018.
“The release of the cash grant is usually after two months of the monitoring period and so the payment for Period 5 will be this January,” he said.
He said that the monitoring is being done to find out the compliance of the beneficiaries to the conditions set for the Pantawid beneficiaries, such as on the health and education of their children.
“The payout for the cash grant will be for all the 18 towns in the province beginning in Tobias Fornier, which is in southern Antique,” he said.
