Poor to receive P10,000-loaded livelihood cards from DTI

By: Roy Stephen C. Canivel, Philippine Daily Inquirer, 24 Dec 2019

The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) plans to give out a total of P350 million next year to jumpstart livelihood programs in poor communities.

But instead of goods that always come in kits, Trade Secretary Ramon said the recipients—about 35,000 individuals—would be getting cards that they could redeem in supermarkets nationwide. This way, the government could save on time and resources looking for bidders to supply the usual livelihood kits.

Beneficiaries from fourth to sixth class municipalities, whether victim of natural or man-made calamities, will each get a card worth P10,000.

A fourth class municipality earns P25 million to P35 million a year, a far cry from the more than P55 million in average annual income of first class municipalities. A sixth class municipality, meanwhile, earns below P15 million on average every year.

If the yet untitled program is done right, this would give many poor Filipinos the capital to start a business, which Lopez said would be better than doling out cash through the conditional cash transfer program.

The Trade chief said the program would complement the DTI’s loan program, called the Pondo sa Pagbabago at Pag-asenso (P3), a microfinance initiative designed to combat usurious “5-6” lenders.

Since its launch in 2017, the program has been making available to micro-entrepreneurs loans worth P5,000 up to P200,000. The problem, however, is that the P3 program only covers existing micro-entrepreneurs, but not those who are just about to start.

“What we encounter when we sometimes do seminars is that they get excited to start but they don’t have any capital. The P3 program gives out loans only to existing [businesses],” Lopez said. INQ