191K poor households in Region 12 to get subsidies under TRAIN

GENERAL SANTOS CITY--Some 191,243 poor households in Region 12 or Soccsksargen are set to receive additional cash subsidy under the national government’s unconditional cash transfer (UCT) program.

Bai Zorahayda Taha, Department of Social Welfare and Development -12  director, said Monday they have already endorsed the processing of the assistance for the beneficiaries, who were identified based on a region-wide validation conducted by the agency.  

Taha said the validation was based on the agency’s database for the Listahanan or the National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction, an information management system that properly documents the poor households nationwide.

She said they completed the updating and encoding of the validated beneficiaries as targeted last May 31. North Cotabato topped the list with 73,894 households, followed by Sultan Kudarat with 42,806, South Cotabato with 40,097, Sarangani with 26,613 and Cotabato City with 7,833.

The national government launched the subsidy program to assist poor households cope with the implementation of the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion or Train Law.

Beneficiaries will receive monthly subsidies in the next three years, starting with P200 or a total of P2,400 in 2018 and P300 or P3,600 annually in 2019 and in 2020.

Taha said they had hired some 657 validators and 46 administrative aides for the house-to-house validation from April 2 to May 5.

She said they employed 37 encoders and two encoding supervisors for the updating of the Listahanan database.

The agency implemented two work shifts from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. to fast track the encoding and updating process, she said.

Taha said the regional office’s national household targeting unit will also lead the hiring of field personnel and validation of prospective beneficiaries for the UCT in the provinces of Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur, including Marawi City, in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. (PNA)