KABATAAN Party-list Rep. Raoul Manuel on Monday urged the government to give additional funding for the educational assistance given by the Department of Social Welfare and Development.

The program was allotted P1.5 billion for 550,000 student beneficiaries. There were two million applicants. DSWD closed its online application process on September 10.

Nearly 300,000 have been given the cash aid as of September 3.

“It is clear that the two million students who registered online — along with many others who do not have access to online platforms — are in dire need of aid to cope with education-related expenses,” Manuel said.

The lawmaker asked the government to increase the number of beneficiaries of the educational assistance from 550,000 to 2.5 million.

This, he said, will guarantee aid for all two million online applicants as well as those students who were not able to apply online.

“An allocation of P5.3 billion on top of the initial P1.5 billion funding for the educational assistance program will be sufficient to serve this purpose,” Manuel said.