The household validation for the potential beneficiaries of the Unconditional Cash Transfer (UCT) Program officially concluded in Zamboanga Peninsula on May 19 with more than 116,000 validated households.

“Out of the 147,498 target households for validation, 116,291 were accomplished while 6,753 (as of June 5) were not validated,” said Michael DS. Mustafa, Regional Field Coordinator of NHTU- IX.

Accordingly, many of those households not validated had no qualified respondents. “A number of those we visited either did not have members who are at least 15 years old (minimum age requirement for respondents), family members already transferred to different locations or houses were still vacant even after three visits were already conducted,” he added.

He also mentioned that all Household Validation Forms (HVFs) used during the validation activity were already encoded in the Regional Office.

Right now, “the data are being run through the Proxy Means Test (PMT), a statistical model that measures household income and socio-economic information using proxy variables. After that, the registration of beneficiaries of the UCT Program shall follow.”

Furthermore, the social welfare agency is looking forward to conduct the first payout for the beneficiaries of the said program by August this year. “For Region IX, we expect that 80% of the households validated will benefit from the program.”

The UCT Program refers to the social mitigating measure under the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) Law signed by President Rodrigo Duterte last year. Identified beneficiaries will be receiving P200 per month in 2018 and P300 per month in 2019 and 2020, respectively. ###