LA TRINIDAD, Benguet – Some 8,390 residents from the province’s thirteen municipalities were able to receive their prescribed financial assistance from the government’s Tulong Panghanapbuhay Para Sa Ating Disadvantaged/Displaced Workers (TUPAD) program that served as their timely Christmas gift from the labor department and the Office of Benguet caretaker congressman and Anti-Crime and Terrorism through Community Involvement and Support (ACT-CIS) Party-list Rep. Eric Yap.
Separate teams from the DOLE Baguio-Benguet Provincial Office and the Office of Congressman Yap went around the province over the past 2 weeks to distribute the P5,250 assistance to each of the beneficiaries after having rendered work in their respective barangays for 15 days based on the guidelines of the agency’s TUPAD program.
Yap took time to personally attend the distribution of the financial assistance to the beneficiaries after he was able to convince top labor officials to allocate a significant amount of funds for the beneficiaries from Benguet who had been heavily impacted by the ongoing Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic that affected their sources of income over the past 21 months.
La Trinidad had the highest number of beneficiaries with 1,319 followed by Itogon – 1,029, Tuba – 859, Buguias – 832, Mankayan – 824, Kapangan – 595, Kabayan – 529, Bokod – 460, Atok – 443, Tublay – 414, Kibungan and Bakun – 391 each and Sablan -304.
The lawmaker underscored that there will be more financial assistance that will be distributed to the identified beneficiaries from the province’s barangays and municipalities next year where the same will be done in tranches depending on the release of the funds that had been earmarked under the approved P5.024 trillion annual budget of the national government for 2022.
Earlier, Congressman Yap had been repeatedly announcing in similar gatherings that he wants that at least one member of the households in the province will be receiving assistance from the various programs of concerned government agencies to help in mitigating the serious negative effect of the COVID-19 pandemic to their employment, economic activities and other sources of livelihood.
Aside from the labor department’s TUPAD program, qualified beneficiaries had also been enrolled by the Office of Congressman Yap to the social welfare department’s Assistance to Individuals in Crisis Situation (AICS) while those who are in need of medical assistance were aided through the health department’s medical assistance to indigent patients (MAIP) which is readily available at the Benguet General Hospital (BeGH) and the Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center (BGHMC).
Local officials and beneficiaries of the various programs of concerned government agencies expressed their appreciation to the unrelenting and uncompromising efforts of Congressman Yap to source out available funds to support the implementation of the said programs, projects and activities in the province which is geared towards allowing the people to recover rom the impact inflicted by the ongoing pandemic to the vibrant economy and make them resilient to be able to hurdle the current challenges to be able to recover from the present condition of the economy. By HENT
