Quezon City- The beneficiaries of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) will receive emergency subsidy pursuant to the enactment of Republic Act 11469 (RA 11469) or the Bayanihan to Heal as One Act.

Under the law, the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) is tasked to develop the guidelines and the lead of the Social Amelioration Program (SAP). The additional subsidies hope to help the most vulnerable sectors meet their basic needs most especially in accessing food and non-food items to combat the Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19).   This allows the provision of emergency subsidies that will benefit around 18 million households coming from low income and daily wage earners to include 4Ps beneficiaries. 

The SAP specifically rationalizes distribution of the emergency subsidies to ensure its fair distribution to qualified beneficiaries across all implementing agencies. This means that for the 4Ps beneficiaries, this will be in two (2) tranches as top-up amount added to their regular cash grants. Because of this, they will no longer be recipients of other social amelioration programs services or packages from other agencies as identified in RA 11469.  

The scheduled release for the first tranche of the Emergency Subsidy for 4Ps beneficiaries will be on April 3, 2020 and will be completed on April 5, 2020. For today’s schedule of release, the regions to be covered are NCR, CAR, I, II, III, IVA & BARM. Other remaining regions will receive their subsidies on April 4-5, 2020. The City/Municipal Links of said regions will inform the beneficiaries if they subsidy has already been credited to their accounts.

Prior to the withdrawals of said subsidy, the beneficiaries are reminded to coordinate with the City/Municipal Links so that arrangements will be made with Local Government Units to ensure that social distancing and other COVID 19-related protocols are strictly observed.

Earlier, DSWD declared “force majeure” for the 4Ps program covering February and March which suspends the monitoring of compliance that serves as the basis for the computation of cash grants.  This was later on extended to cover the months of April and May.

In addition to the cash grants for the months of April and May to cover health (P750) and rice (P600) subsidies, each household will also receive the emergency subsidy from P3,650 to P6,650 per month for two months. The amount that each household will receive is based on the prescribed emergency subsidy per region determined from the region’s minimum wage levels as these are close approximations to the amount needed to buy basic food, medicine, and hygiene essentials.

Once the subsidies are credited to the accounts of the 4Ps beneficiaries, they may withdraw it through their Euro Master Visa (EMV) cards or may use them at the grocery stores, supermarkets and drugstores with Point of Sale (POS) terminal.

For those 4Ps beneficiaries who have yet to receive their EMV cards, City/ Municipal links will coordinate with them for the distribution of their grants.

The National Project Management Office (NPMO) of the 4Ps have reminded its program beneficiaries to be vigilant and to only believe and rely on information released by the official social media and website of the 4Ps and other National Government Agencies such as the Department of Social Welfare and Development. ==