The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) offered a range of services, including the distribution of cash aid, to address the needs of the poor and vulnerable citizens from Manila at the “Bagong Pilipinas” campaign kick-off rally on Jan. 28.
“This is DSWD’s way of bringing prompt government service closer to the people which is in keeping with the objectives of the Bagong Pilipinas campaign,” DSWD Assistant Secretary for Strategic Communications and spokesperson Romel Lopez said.
One of the highlights of the kick-off rally was the “Serbisyo Fair,” where the DSWD-National Capital Region Field Office (NCR-FO) gave cash aid to about 15,000 beneficiaries under the Assistance to Individuals in Crisis Situation (AICS) program.
Each recipient received P2,000.
AICS is one of the DSWD’s social welfare services, offering medical, burial, transportation, education, food, and financial aid.
“To ensure that the beneficiaries who received assistance were qualified, they were cross-matched with the existing DSWD database and underwent deduplication process. After the cross-matching, the identified beneficiaries were assessed by personnel of the DSWD-NCR to further determine if they are qualified to receive the cash assistance,” Lopez explained.
Aside from cash assistance, the DSWD-NCR distributed family food packs to about 5,000 beneficiaries affected by various fire incidents in Metro Manila.
The DSWD field office also set up a mobile kitchen in its designated booth area to serve free arroz caldo to campaign participants.
Officials and personnel from the DSWD-Central and NCR offices were also present at the Quirino Grandstand to show their support for the administration’s campaign.
“Under the Bagong Pilipinas brand of governance, the DSWD aims to support the Marcos administration in providing social welfare programs and services to lower the poverty rate of the country to a single digit,” Lopez said.