Senatorial aspirant and Rep. Alan Peter Cayetano urged government agencies to make it easier for people to access their financial aid programs amid surging inflation, suggesting that departments use mobile apps to make their processes more efficient.
“Why do we have to make it difficult for people to get help when that is people’s money,” Cayetano said.
Cayetano pointed out that the government has billions of pesos in funds ready for distribution to vulnerable sectors through the Department of Health, Department of Social Welfare and Development, and Department of Transportation as part of the P5-trillion national budget for 2022.
However, the much-needed assistance are delayed by government red tape, fixers positioned in frontline government agencies, and local politicians who act as mediators between national financial aid programs and their respective constituencies.
Cayetano said the government’s current situation is a reversal of its previous experiences when a lack of funds rendered it incapable of providing aid to vulnerable segments of the population.
Cayetano one way is to leverage technology by developing mobile apps that people can use to process government transactions and receive financial aid through fintech services like GCash or PayMaya.
“With the digital age and with the cellphone, dapat you could do almost everything when it comes to government transactions sa cellphone mo,” he said. Maricel V. Cruz
Cayetano also discussed the possibility of continuing at least two financial aid programs that he initiated in past years to help Filipinos who are grappling with the effects of recent record inflation triggered by high fuel prices.
He said his Presyo, Trabaho, Kita (PTK) program, which provided seed capital for small cooperatives across the country, was successful in weaning financially vulnerable transport workers and vendors’ associations from predatory loan providers, known locally as “five-six” for their steep interest rates.
However, as the pandemic hit the country, Cayetano and his partners in the private sector had to pivot to smaller-scale and wider-impact financial aid initiatives such as Sampung Libong Pag-asa and Sari-saring Pag-asa.
“We’ll continue to do that in the private sector, and together with our partners in public service. But it is very important for the government to have such kind of program,” he said.
