THE DEPARTMENT of Social Welfare and Development is considering implementing a house-to-house distribution of financial assistance for indigents student who could not register online.

DSWD spokesperson Assistant Secretary Romel Lopez said they will allot specific guidelines for the house-to-house distribution of the cash aid, possibly in coordination with the local government units.

“When it comes to those who don’t have access to internet, to gadgets, we will come up with guidelines, most probably offsite payouts. Remember during the pandemic, the DSWD social workers, nag-bahay bahay na,” Lopez said in an interview on Monday.

He added that the department will add more paying centers in cities and municipalities with the help of the Department of the Interior and Local Government.

“Last Saturday when DILG Secretary Benhur Abalos visited one of our payout areas, he promised us that he will be talking to more local government units to cater and help us with our educational assistance,” he said. “Our possible agenda will be to really increase the number of our payout centers to better help our kababayans.”

About P376.5 million educational assistance have been provided to some 148,000 students nationwide in the past two Saturdays.

Three students per indigent family can receive cash aid worth P1,000 for those in elementary, P2,000 for those in high school, P3,000 for senior high school and P4,000 for a student enrolled in a college or technical-vocational school.

Up to 400,000 poor students are expected to benefit from the educational cash support program which was allotted a budget of P1.5 billion.

The financial assistance will be available in the DSWD central, regional, provincial and other local offices until September 24, 2022.