CEBU: A total of 31,748 beneficiaries from Central Visayas are on the list of the Department of Social Welfare and Development’s (DSWD) Food Stamp Program (FSP), a social welfare official said on Tuesday.
In an interview, DSWD 7 (Central Visayas) Director Shalaine Marie Lucero said 10,174 beneficiaries are listed for Cebu province, while Negros Oriental has 21,574 beneficiaries.
‘(The) DSWD will provide monetary assistance of PHP3,000 that will be released through the Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards,’ Lucero said.
According to her, beneficiaries will use their EBT cards to purchase selected food items and other commodities from eligible merchants.
Lucero, however, did not provide any explanation why the beneficiaries of the national government’s food stamp program would only come from Negros Oriental and Cebu.
She said the agency is still preparing for the program’s full implementation.
The DSWD is training the staff needed for the distribution of the EBT, as well as the supervision for the actu
al giving out of the cards in the areas covered.
The government is set to fully implement the FSP nationwide in July after a successful six-month pilot implementation in several parts of the country.
The FSP is one of the priority programs of the Marcos administration that aims to fight involuntary hunger by providing food augmentation to the bottom one million households, based on the Listahanan 3, who belong to the food-poor criteria as defined by the Philippine Statistics Authority.
Source: Philippines News Agency
