LA TRINIDAD, Benguet – Benguet Caretaker Congressman and Anti-Crime and Terrorism through Community Involvement and Support (ACT-CIS) Party-list Rep. Eric Yap distributed some 90 million worth of financial assistance under the labor department’s Tulong Panghanapbuhay Sa Ating Disadvantaged/Displaced Workers (TUPAD) program to thousands of identified beneficiaries coming from the province’s 140 barangays last December alone.
Yap, who chairs the powerful House Committee on Appropriations, stated the distributed funds is the biggest allocation that Benguet got in terms of such allocation over the past several decades, saying that the funds for the program was sourced from the labor department through constant representations on the need of the same.
Early last year, the lawmaker initially distribute some P30 million worth of financial assistance to selected beneficiaries in the province’s 140 barangays under the TUPAD program where such allocation was far bigger compared to the allocations received over the past several years.
Congressman Yap promised more similar assistance from various government agencies aside from the labor department will be available for the people in the different barangays this year as he wants every household to get the assistance from each of the agencies before he ends term as the province’s legislative caretaker by June 2022.
The distribution of the financial assistance to the qualified beneficiaries from the 140 barangays was done in separate dates last December.
The lawmaker stipulated that aside from the assistance from the labor department, he vowed to continue seeking assistance for the people of Benguet from other agencies for them to cope up with the difficulties caused by the ongoing Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.
According to him, the enormous assistance given out to the people were a product of his representation with concerned government agencies to ensure there will be continuous assistance especially to the members of the marginalized sectors of the community.
Yap claimed that for this year, more assistance have been included in the budget of some government agencies for residents of the province which can be used to help the families survive the serious negative effects of the pandemic.
He admitted that a huge portion of the province’s population had been heavily impacted by the implementation of the various levels of community quarantine over the past ten months thus concerned government agencies must sustain the assistance they are providing the identified beneficiaries to allow them to recover from the pandemic. By HENT
