74,117 students from Eastern Visayas to avail of CCT expansion under PNoy administration

Street children in Cebu. / Wikipedia Photo

TACLOBAN CITY — Some 74,117 students from Eastern Visayas stand to benefit from the expansion of the Pantawid Pamilya Pilipino Program (4Ps) or the conditional cash transfer (CCT) program based on the compliance verification done by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) here.

The expansion of the government’s flagship poverty alleviation already include in its coverage children 15-18 years old to help them finish secondary education.

Prior the expansion, the program covers only households with children whose ages range from 0-14 years old.

Of the target recipients, the highest number is from Leyte province with 27,978 and Western Samar with 16,057.

On the other hand, Biliran has 2,261 recipients; Eastern Samar, 8,625; Northern Samar, 13,650 and Southern Leyte, 5, 546.

Michelle Calzado, program information officer in Eastern Visayas, said that payout for the initial beneficiaries belonging to Set 7 of the program has already started. The payout covers the first quarter of the year.

Each recipient gets a monthly differential of P200 because they have already been released P300 per month for their educational grant. Calzado said that education assistance for high school students was increased to P500.

Meanwhile, some 254,997 households in the region have benefited from the CCT since the administration of President Benigno S. Aquino III initiated the expansion of coverage to cover more indigent families.

Households served include 6,935 in Biliran; 28,829 in Eastern Samar; 100,510 in Leyte; 43,934 in Northern Samar; 56,301 in Western Samar and 18,488 in Southern Leyte.

At the start of July this year, the program already covered 3,590 villages in the region composed of 125 villages in Biliran; 464 in Eastern Samar; 1,278 in Leyte; 501 in Northern Samar; 815 in Western Samar and 407 in Southern Leyte.