The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) Field Office XI, in coordination with the Land Bank of the Philippines and the City Social Services and Development Office of Davao City, has released the UCT cash grants to some 1,330 pensioners of the Social Pension Program for Indigent Senior Citizens (SPPISC) of DSWD. Pensioners scheduled for the release of the grants on July 18 at the SM Annex Activity Center, Davao City were from the barangays Centro, Gov. Vicente Duterte, Lapu-Lapu, San Antonio, and Ubalde of Agdao District.

The UCT is the tax subsidy under the TRAIN law which seeks to provide cash subsidies amounting to P200 a month for 2018 to 10 million households and individuals in the country. Of this figure, 4.4 million are members of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program; 2.6 million are social pension senior citizen beneficiaries; and the remaining three million will be coming from the DSWD’s Listahanan.

“Excited nako nga muoli aron maka-pamalengke na ko og pagkaon sa balay para sa akong mga anak ug napulo ka apo sa tuhod (I am excited to go home so I can buy fresh food from the market for my children and my ten great grandchildren),” Fortunato Garupa, 67, said when asked what to do with the money.

Another social pensioner, Violeta Jabilles, 62, said she’d use the grant as capital, “Kining akong kwarta nga madawat, akong i-kapital sa uling nga buy and sell (The money that I will receive, I will use as capital for a charcoal business.)

The pensioners receive a lump sum of P2,400.

“It is our joy to have been channels of the Duterte administration’s firm commitment to promote the welfare of the Filipino people. This cash grant will truly be of great help to the poor and disadvantaged sectors of our society especially to our indigent senior citizens,” Ma. Vilia L. Vigil, Assistant Regional Director for Administration of DSWD Field Office XI, said in her opening remarks.

The UCT program is launched to help the poor Filipinos cope with the effects of the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion law, also known as, TRAIN law. (DSWD)