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By Ira Karen Apanay, Senior Reporter
Family access cards that entitle the country’s
poorest families to cheap government rice were distributed starting
last week by the Department of Social Welfare and Development in
some towns and cities in Metro Manila (National Capital Region).
Patricia Luna, assistant director of the Social
Welfare department and also the project manager for the family
access cards, on Tuesday assured that the access cards are
tamper-proof. She pointed to bar codes on the cards.
Luna said they distributed family access cards
to more than 12,000 families in Marikina City on Friday. She added
that 5,257 families from Pateros will receive their access cards
today and 10,314 families in Navotas City will get theirs today.
When asked on why the Social Welfare department
took a few weeks to distribute the family access cards, Luna said
local government units had failed to meet the deadline for
submission of their master lists of recipients. The department had
intended to hand out the access cards on May 9. Qualified
beneficiaries are those earning less than P1,000 per capita every
month.
Luna said Quezon City, Makati City and San Juan
City were the last to express interest in the family access cards.
The access cards are an interagency initiative
among the Social Welfare and Agriculture departments and the local
governments.
Social Welfare Undersecretary Celia Yamco said
the cards will provide the local governments updated lists of the
poorest families in their areas. The information, she added, will
help them identify targets for future government programs.
Yamco said the Social Welfare department has
allotted P2.7 million for the family access cards and the bar codes.
She added that the Agriculture department, through the National Food
Authority, will provide the bar-code reader and other machines
needed and the government rice.
Tamper-proof
Luna said they had obtained the master lists of
the poorest families by identifying targeted villages (barangay
units), poverty-mapping of households, assessing information on
family heads and family members and validating qualified recipients
through random sampling.
The beneficiaries can use the access cards to
avail of the government rice from Tindahan Natin outlets and Bigasan
ng Parokya stalls.
The bar code, also known as Beneficiary
Identification for Government Assistance (Bigas Number) has 17
reference numbers consisting of three numbering systems. These
numbering systems are the Program Code of the Department of Social
Welfare and Development, Philippine Standard Geographic Code and
Household Beneficiary Number.
The bar code, the Social Welfare department
said, provides the standard code for geographic areas of the country
that rationalizes and integrates different existing geographic codes
being used by various government agencies.
Luna said every local government unit, barangay
and family have their own codes, which can be read by a bar-code
reader that is similar to those used by cashiers in groceries and
department stores.
She added that the department’s
information-system staff had suggested the security features of the
family access cards.
Own access cards
Some local government officials said they will
produce their own family access cards. The Social Welfare department
agreed but said it will require every local government unit to
submit its master list to the department. It said it will discourage
politicians from printing their faces on the family access cards.
Local governments are allowed to use a different
color for their own printed access cards: Caloocan City, Pasig City,
Quezon City and Parañaque City (yellow); Mandaluyong (white);
Marikina (pink); and Manila, Pateros and Valenzuela City (green).
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