Gov’t eyes limiting cash aid to those with nat’l IDs, says Diokno

Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno on Friday said the government is looking at ways how the Philippine Identification System (PhilSys) or national ID can be used to reduce leakages in its cash transfer and subsidy programs.

During the House of Representatives’ deliberations of the proposed P5.268-trillion national budget for 2023, Diokno said that while the social protection programs of Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) should be continued, “giving of ‘ayuda’ in relation to the crisis, I think that should already be discontinued because we have actually fully recovered and because of the limited fiscal space.”

The Finance chief said there were huge leakages in the government’s cash transfer programs—Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) and the unconditional cash transfers (UCT)—which needed to be addressed.

“The most efficient way to do this is by requiring all the citizens to have a national ID,” Diokno said.

“We are thinking along the lines of maybe limiting the beneficiaries to those who have national ID,” he added.

The Marcos administration’s chief economic manager said requiring beneficiaries of the cash transfer programs was also a way to incentivize citizens for getting a national ID.

The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) is ramping up the production of Philippine Identification System (PhilSys) cards or National ID cards to comply with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s directive to issue 50 million IDs by the end of the year.

In his first State of the Nation Address, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. ordered the issuance of 30 million physical cards and 20 million digital PhilSys IDs to achieve the ultimate goal of issuing 92 million by the middle of 2023.

Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman said the government would provide around P206.50 billion of “ayuda” composed of the cash transfers and other subsidy programs by various agencies.

In line with this, she said the 4Ps of the DSWD would receive a higher allocation of P115.61 billion for education and health grants, as well as rice subsidy to 4.4 million households.

“This is 7.3 percent higher compared to this year’s P107.67 billion, which will be used to support the improvement of data validation for the Listahanan 3 and thus ensure a better beneficiary targeting system,” she said. —NB, GMA News