The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) Bicol clarified that the delay of release of cash assistance to 4Ps beneficiaries in the Region was due to the seven-day extension requested by the Land Bank of the Philippines (LBP) to download the funds to its partner conduits that are responsible to directly release the cash grants to the beneficiaries.

The pay-out which was supposed to start last April 17 will be rescheduled on April 24. The cash assistance that will be received by the beneficiaries on the said re-scheduled date covers the month of January 2018 along with the education grants which includes P500 for children in High School or P300 for children in elementary, health assistance amounting to P500.00, rice subsidy amounting to P600.00. Also, it includes the assistance for the Unconditional Cash Transfer Program (UCT) amounting to P2,400 (200.00 per month) for the whole year (January – December 2018).

A total of 258, 215 beneficiaries are affected of the delay. These beneficiaries include the Indigenous Peoples under Modified Conditional Cash Transfer Program (MCCT) and those who are without LBP cash cards who received their grants through over-the counter pay-out.

However, those beneficiaries who have LBP cash cards, have already received their cash assistance last March 2018.

According to Regional Director Arnel B. Garcia, DSWD is saddened about the delay of pay-out. “We understand the clamor of beneficiaries for not receiving their cash assistance on time. We also know that they needed the assistance for health and education specially, that some of their children will graduate or will enroll for the next school year,” he said.

“At this point, we ask for the patience of our beneficiaries and we ensure that the cash assistance meant for them will be received by the beneficiaries themselves,” he added.

In addition, the cash assistance for the month of December 2017 is set to be included in July 2018 pay-out which includes the cash assistance for the months of April – May 2018.

For the cash assistance for Months of February to May 2018, it will be released in accordance to its scheduled pay-out but can be subject to change upon advisory of DSWD Central Office.***GLindio-IO-4Ps.