Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, April 12) — The Metropolitan Manila Development Authority will formally notify the Interior Department soon regarding mayors’ concerns about the distribution of cash aid to residents in the region.
“Sa observation po namin, talagang mahihirapan na matapos yung sinasabing 15 days, ‘no,” said MMDA chairman Benhur Abalos Jr. in the Palace’s virtual briefing on Monday, noting the need to balance speed and safety in distribution efforts.
[Translation: Based on our observation, it will really be difficult to finish (the provision of cash aid) within 15 days.]
Late last week, the agency told CNN Philippines that city governments within the National Capital Region (NCR) Plus zone are encouraged to finish handing out financial assistance within the said period. There have been some cities that encountered challenges like long lines of people waiting to receive cash until midnight and some recipients not seeing their names in the list of beneficiaries.
“Kung bibilisan mo, baka magsiksikan po ang tao eh…kinakailangan ibinabahay-bahay mo yan eh. Pero kung ibabahay-bahay mo naman, hahaba naman ang panahon. Kaya yun nga, susulat kami sa DILG in the next few days para humingi po ng palugit hinggil po dito,” added Abalos.
[Translation: If you do it too fast, people will crowd (the cash aid distribution sites). You really need to give out the assistance door-to-door, but this will take longer. With this, we will be writing to the DILG in the next few days to ask allowance for this.]
Meanwhile, Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque assures that President Rodrigo Duterte is only asking for “best effort” in cash aid distribution efforts and that he understands there’s a need to avoid crowding amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Still, the chief executive hopes the provision of financial assistance to targeted beneficiaries will be finished soon, Roque added.
Metro Manila, Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna and Rizal recently transitioned from enhanced community quarantine to the less tighter modified ECQ effective April 12. The area was placed under the strictest quarantine classification earlier in a bid to temper an alarming rise in daily infections.
