203 families get prepaid cash cards

MANILA, Philippines - Prepaid cards were distributed to 203 family beneficiaries of the Modified Conditional Cash Transfer (MCCT), officials said yesterday.

The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) and the Land Bank of the Philippines (LBP) distributed the prepaid cards to the MCCT beneficiaries.

 Through the prepaid cards, beneficiaries of the MCCT may get their grants at any automated teller machine (ATM) or they can use it to purchase groceries or medicines through the point-of-sale system,” DSWD Secretary Corazon Juliano-Soliman said.

The 203 prepaid cards, she said, comprise the first batch of the more than 700 prepaid cards, which will be distributed in the succeeding days. Additional 1,400 applications are also currently being processed.

The MCCT is an innovation of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino or the Conditional Cash Transfer program that provides cash grants and social welfare interventions to families not covered by the Pantawid Pamilya.

These families include those who are residing on the street, indigenous peoples in geographically isolated and disadvantaged areas, and those with special needs such as families displaced by either natural or man-made disasters.