The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) has reported the release of some P24.5 billion to fund the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) Program in line with the implementation of the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion law.
The DBM on Monday said a total of P24.5-billion obligation authority, including a P4.3-billion cash allocation, has been released by the agency to the Land Bank of the Philippines (LandBank) in line with the Tax Reform Cash Transfer Project (TRCT) of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD).
The P4.3-billion cash allocation shall be used to fund cash grants at P200 per beneficiary per month to the existing 1.805 million Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) cash card beneficiaries.
The immediate release of the fund entitles 4Ps beneficiaries to receive the cash grants within the month, while the entire annual TRCT cash grant shall be provided one time per year to the intended beneficiaries.
The TRCT seeks to provide cash grants to poor households and individuals who may not benefit from the lower income-tax rates, but may be adversely affected by rising prices. The mitigation measure will grant cash-transfer support to the bottom 50 percent of households or approximately 10 million households identified by the DSWD based on the list of beneficiaries registered in the National Housing Targeting System for Poverty Reduction (NHTS-PR), or Listahan.
“The subsidy is intended to mitigate the temporary increases in prices owing to the implementation of the comprehensive tax-reform program,” the DBM said.
For the first year of the TRCT, funds in the amount of P24.49 billion have already been lodged to the LandBank, in accordance with the 2018 General Appropriations Act.
The target dates for the distribution of the funds under the TRCT include: March 2018 for the 4Ps beneficiaries who already have a LandBank cash card estimated to be around 1.8 million beneficiaries; March 2018 for those who still do not have a LandBank cash card at around 2.6 million beneficiaries; April to May 2018 for social-pension beneficiaries with existing LandBank cash cards estimated at 400,000 beneficiaries; April to May 2018 for social-pension beneficiaries without LandBank cash cards at around 2.6 million beneficiaries; and August 2018 for NHTS-PR households at around 2.6 million.
For the second and third year of implementation of the TRCT, the unconditional cash grant will be raised to P300 per beneficiary per month, according to the DBM.