The Land Bank of the Philippines (LANDBANK) has released a total of P40.61 billion in unconditional cash transfers (UCTs) as of March this year to beneficiary-households of the Duterte administration’s social mitigation program under the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion Act (TRAIN).
Under the TRAIN, up to 30 percent of the incremental revenues from the law is earmarked for social mitigation measures, such as the UCTs, while 7o percent is earmarked for President Duterte’s centerpiece program “Build, Build, Build.”
Republic Act (RA) No. 10963 or the TRAIN Law, which also slashed personal income tax (PIT) rates for 99 percent of salary earners, was implemented starting January 2018.
RA 10963 benefits salary earners because the hefty cuts in their PIT tax payments translates into extra income equivalent to about a one-month take-home pay.
This law also adjusted the excise taxes on fuel, which prompted the inclusion of the social mitigation program to ease the initial impact of the adjustments on the poorest 50 percent of the population.
In her report to the Bureau of the Treasury (BTr), LANDBANK president-CEO Cecilia Borromeo said P22.22 billion sourced from the program funds under the 2018 national budget was released to 9,258,928 UCT beneficiaries from March 2018 to March 2020.
The UCT fund under the 2018 budget totaled P24 billion, which is for the benefit of 10 million targeted households receiving P2,400 each.
However, P1.78 billion of the amount has yet to be released because the LANDBANK is still waiting for the submission by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) of the remaining list of beneficiaries under the UCT program who have yet to receive their subsidies.
Under the 2019 national budget, another P18.39 billion was released by LANDBANK from July 2019 to March 2020 to 5,108,330 UCT recipients. For 2019, each beneficiary-household received P3,600.
The LANDBANK will release the balance of P6.1 billion for the 2019 UCT program as soon as the DSWD submits the list of the remaining recipients, Borromeo said.
Borromeo said the UCTs were distributed to the beneficiaries either through their LANDBANK cash cards or over-the-counter (OTC) payments in the bank’s branches or other accredited conduits such as rural banks and cooperatives.
UCT recipients include beneficiaries of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps), social pensioners under the Senior Citizens Act, and other low-income households identified by the DSWD through its National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction (NHTS-TR), also known as Listahanan.
Copies of Borromeo’s report were also submitted to the Department of Budget and Management (DBM); DSWD; Senate President Vicente Sotto III; Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano; Senator Juan Edgardo Angara, as chairman of the Senate finance committee; and Rep. Eric Yap, as chairman of the appropriations committee of the House of Representatives.
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