THE Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) has been swamped with online applications for its one-time educational subsidy for poor students.
DSWD Assistant Secretary Rommel Lopez, during the “Laging Handa” public briefing, said applications have reached two million.
The agency has said that its P1.5 billion budget for the financial assistance can only accommodate 400,000 beneficiaries.
As of September 5, the DSWD has paid out P649.8 million to 257,285 eligible students nationwide.
Lopez urged the public to be more understanding as he reiterated that the educational aid is limited to indigent and in crisis students, among them working students, breadwinners, and children of persons with disability.
He said the 400,000 student targets for this year is already double the 200,000 beneficiaries in previous years, while the P1.5 billion allocated for this year’s program is triple the original P500 million that had been allotted for this year.
In previous years, the budget was only around P200 million to P300 million a year.
“Safe to say, mga almost 900 million pesos pa po iyong ating pondong nalalabi at naniniwala pa po tayo na sapat pa po ito hanggang sa ating payout po, iyong last say payout po natin sa September 24 (Safe to say, we still have almost P900 million left in our fund and we believe that it is enough to cover the payout until September 24),” Lopez said.
He said many of the beneficiaries are college or vocational students (estimated 85,000), followed by elementary students (more than 79,700), high school students (56,600) and senior high school (36,000).
OFFSITE PAYOUTS
Lopez said DSWD will continue to accept applications for the educational aid, reiterating that those who had initially received text confirmations are not yet guaranteed that they will receive assistance.
He again reminded the public that recipients of any scholarship from the local government or the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program(4Ps) are no longer eligible to receive the cash assistance.
He also said that three towns are now pilot testing the offsite payout of the educational aid — which means it is the DSWD and local government officials that go directly to the community or beneficiary who are unable to register online due to their location and internet connection concerns.
The towns are located in Tanay, Rizal for Region VI-A (Calabarzon), in Region IV-B (Mimaropa), and in Region II (Cagayan Valley).
Lopez said towns that were forced to cancel their distribution last Saturday due to bad weather are also expected to schedule the payout on weekdays. He said applicants should just wait for their text confirmation.
As this developed, DSWD Secretary Erwin Tulfo yesterday told his field officers and social workers that he has their back and should not be afraid of local government officials who threatened or harassed them in connection with the distribution of the cash aid.
DSWD had insisted that the cash aid, which would come from the budget disbursed to their department, would only be distributed to beneficiaries directly and do not need to pass or be released to local officials.
