The Department of Social Welfare and Development – National Capital Region (DSWD-NCR) will validate eligible children-beneficiaries for the Expanded Age Coverage in Pantawid Pamilya program to cover 15-18 years old children of registered households starting June 2014.

This expansion of the program will enable the children-beneficiaries to graduate in high school in consonance to the K-12 program of the Department of Education (DepED) and eventually have better opportunities than those who only finished elementary grade.

DSWD-NCR Regional Director Ma. Alicia S. Bonoan said that the field office is now undertaking preparatory activities regarding the upcoming validation of potential beneficiaries to reach the target of 90,404 children in Metro Manila for registration under the expanded age coverage of the program.

Likewise, beneficiaries under the Modified Conditional Cash Transfer for Homeless Street Families (MCCT-HSF) will also be included in the coming implementation of this high school expansion of age coverage.

As of March 5, 2014, DSWD-NCR has registered and is monitoring 220, 029 households for the regular Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT), also known as Pantawid Pamilya while 2,056 households are under the MCCT-HSF.

Meanwhile, registration of another batch of additional potential beneficiaries for regular CCT is ongoing from March to May 2014, aimed to validate the identified poor households in the ‘Listahanan’ who previously did not pass the Eligibility Check Routine (ECR). ### (DSWD FO-NCR, Social Marketing Office, April 25, 2014)