State-owned Land Bank of the Philippines (LANDBANK) headed by bankero Cecilia Borromeo successfully funneled billions of pesos worth of cash transfer that benefited millions of low-income beneficiaries the past six years.
Borromeo, president and CEO at LANDBANK, earned praises from her boss, Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez who is also LANDBANK chairman, for efficiently and quickly conducting the dole out program that helped transition millions of Filipinos past the pandemic.
According to Dominguez, LANDBANK, as distribution arm of the government’s social protection programs, conducted cash transfers of only P45.5 billion the year immediately before he assumed the office of the Secretary of Finance in 2015.
Those transfers benefited a total of 4.4 million beneficiaries that year but because of the pandemic, the cash transfers quickly expanded to P133.6 billion in 2021 that benefited 10 million recipients nationwide.
“LANDBANK’s role in this effort served us well during the pandemic,” Dominguez said.
For this year, Dominguez said President Duterte already approved the proposal extending cash assistance of P500 per vulnerable family per month for up to six months.
That assistance will again be coursed through LANDBANK as part of mitigating measures helping cushion the impact of the Russia-Ukraine conflict on the most vulnerable sectors of the economy.
LANDBANK previously provided bank accounts for 7.2 million beneficiaries who never had bank accounts before. Some 6.3 million more enrolled under the national identification program will benefit from the cash assistance.
