THE Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) is set to release around P28 million by the end of January to some 80,000 Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) household beneficiaries with pregnant women and children aged two and below.
Gemma Gabuya, 4Ps National Program Manager and director, yesterday said in a DSWD briefing that 4Ps families will start receiving an additional cash grant of P350 per month from the end of January to the first two weeks of February.
Gabuya said they would deposit the cash grant for January and February, or P700 for two months, to the automated teller machine (ATM) cards of the 80,000 families registered under the F1KD or First 1,000 Days (F1KD) of Life scheme.
She said the cash grant would be on top of the 4Ps health and educational grants that beneficiaries regularly receive and would only cover the duration of the pregnancy and until the infant reaches the age of two years old.
The cash grant is not retroactive, which means pregnant women or infants would not receive the equivalent of the grant before their registration to the F1KD.
Gabuya said the F1KD could be used for the transportation fare of the beneficiary to and from checkups, for their vitamins, and food among others.
Beneficiaries must avail of pre-natal and post-natal checkups in Department of Health-accredited healthcare facilities as well as attend ante-natal services and give birth in DOH-accredited hospitals. They must also attend counseling sessions and avail of immunization and vaccinations.
The 4Ps was launched in 2008 and institutionalized by Republic Act (RA) 11310 in 2019 as a national poverty reduction strategy and human capital investment program, providing conditional cash transfer to poor households for a maximum period of seven years to improve their children’s health, nutrition and education.
A 4Ps beneficiary-family receives daycare and elementary grant of P300 per child per month for ten months, conditional on their child’s school attendance; P500 per child per month for ten months for junior high school with the same conditionality on their child’s school attendance and P700 per child per month for ten months for senior high school with the same condition.
Households also receive P750 per month for 12 months provided that their children aged 2-14 years old undergo growth development and monitoring, deworming and attend family development sessions or FDS.
The F1KD was launched as part of the Marcos administration’s efforts to address malnutrition and stunting.
MOBILE KITCHENS
Leo Quintillia, the DSWD Special Assistant to the Secretary for Disaster Response Management Group and Concurrent Officer-in-Charge of the National Resource and Logistics Management Bureau, said the agency is set to distribute 15 mobile kitchen food trucks and water filtration trucks on February 7 to different regions in the country.
Quintilla said except for Metro Manila, all 15 other regional offices of DSWD would receive the mobile kitchen which would provide up to 500 hot meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner for evacuees in evacuation centers and ports where people are stranded during disasters and calamities.
DSWD is not providing NCR with a mobile kitchen, he said, since it already received one from the World Food Programme while some local government units in Metro Manila already have their own mobile kitchen.
Each mobile kitchen would be manned by five persons including a cook who would prepare hot meals that have already been identified and planned by the DSWD with the help of dieticians, nutritionists and local government units, Quintilla added.
He said ingredients for the meals would be sourced locally.