The Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) is now preparing for the distribution of the second phase of the government's fuel subsidy to the transport sector after most of the beneficiaries received the fund allocation for the first tranche.
Based on the LTFRB data as of June 14, only 31,992 of the total 264,578 beneficiaries are yet to receive the P6,500 fuel subsidy to drivers and operators of public utility vehicles through the Land Bank of the Philippines (LBP).
For the fuel subsidy allocated for delivery riders under the Department of Trade and Industry, LTFRB Executive Director Tina Cassion said a total of 22,517 of the listed 27,777 beneficiaries have already received the money.
She said the remaining 5,260 beneficiaries were not able to receive the subsidy as the fund was returned to the DTI due to the invalid data provided for the mobile wallet apps like Gcash and Paymaya.
But Cassion said they expect the distribution of the first tranche for PUV derivers and delivery riders to finish by June 17.
"The LTFRB is currently preparing all documentary requirements for the release of the second tranche. The LTFRB assures process of availment of the subsidy will be much faster for the second tranche as all the cards have already been produced by LBP from the previous phases (for PUJ) and from tranche 1 (for other modes)," said Cassion.
"We're targeting early July. However, it would also depend on how fast DBM (Department of Budget and Management) can download the funds to us," she added.
The national government has earlier allocated P2.5 billion for fuel subsidy to help the transport sector amid the series of big-time all price hikes.
But the distribution appears to be having problems for the tricycle drivers since the processing of payrolls for the 617,806 beneficiaries.
The government allocated P625 million for tricycle drivers wherein each of them will receive P1,000.
Since tricycles are not regulated by the LTFRB, the local government units (LGUs) were in charge of the processing of the documents for the distribution.