P60B earmarked for cash aid in ’24 budget
ALL “near poor” workers, or those who receive a monthly salary of P23,000 or less, will receive next year a one-time P5,000 financial assistance under the Ayuda sa Kapos sa Kita Program (AKAP) of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD).
Speaker Martin Romualdez said the cash aid is assured under the proposed P5.768 trillion national budget for 2024.
“That is our endeavor: To cast a wider net to those who still need more support from the government,” Romualdez told reporters last Tuesday when asked to explain the program’s goal.
Rep. Zaldy Co (PL, Ako Bicol), chairperson of the House Committee on Appropriations, said Congress has allocated P60 billion for the AKAP program under the 2024 budget, with P26.7 billion already lodged under the DSWD’s budget for locally funded projects and the remainder under the unprogrammed funds which can only be funded if there are excess revenue collection in any non-tax revenue sources or if there are new revenue collection from new taxes or non-tax sources which are not part of, nor included in, the original revenue sources reflected in the Budget of Expenditures and Sources of Financing.
Unprogrammed funds can also be funded by approved loans for foreign-assisted projects.
Co told reporters on Monday night right after the House ratified the 2024 General Appropriations Bill (GAB) that under the DSWD’s AKAP, those who are considered near poor, or those who receive a monthly pay of P23,000 or less, will be given financial aid of more or less P5,000 each.
“That’s the new program of our administration,” he said. “More or less P5,000 po per person kasi ito na rin ang (sagot) natin sa inflation (More or less they’ll be given P5,000 per person because it’ll also serve as our anti-inflation assistance),” Co said.
Co said the AKAP financial aid will be on top of the assistance received by the poorest of the poor under the government’s flagship Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps), or the conditional cash transfer program.
Co said the AKAP program targets an estimated 12 million households as beneficiaries, particularly construction worker, drivers, factory workers and other blue-collar workers.
“This AKAP program is for households whose members are employed but are not earning enough,” said the appropriations panel chair.
Romualdez said the 2024 budget does not only cater to the poorest of the poor: “We’re trying to expand that to the near-poor, so to speak. We’ll be adding more families. We’ll be more inclusive in that sense. So all the social services will be provided for them.
“Some salient features of the 2024 budget have made sure, on the part of the House, that this budget will be one in fighting inflation because the prices of goods are increasing, and it will be very much pro-poor. We are very much focused on the social service and social welfare program for the poor,” he said.
