P37.4M spent for burial, cash assistance from city

CEBU, Philippines - The Cebu City government has already spent P37.4 million on burial and cash assistance to indigent families since the program was started in the early part of 2011 up to the end of February.

Ruben Baculi, head of the City Hall's Burial and Cash Assistance office, said the number of applicants for the benefits is increasing every year because many of the city constituents already know of the existence of the program.

Those who wish to avail of burial assistance are entitled to a cheap casket that costs P8,000 to be taken from the Eternal Funeral Homes and cash assistance worth P10,000.

The burial assistance program used to be handled by clustered barangays but they decided to give it back to the city because they could not handle the paperwork.

Since then the Office of the Mayor has taken over the burial assistance program.

Baculi said the city now allows the late filing of application for the burial assistance program after Mayor Michael Rama issued an order relaxing the 60-day prescriptive period policy to apply for the program.

But the death of the deceased subject of the claim must be within the fiscal year within which the fund is allocated.

Rama decided to relax the previous policy after he observed that several claimants had a hard time complying immediately with the requirements for the burial assistance due to financial constraints.

For this year the City Council approved P20 million for the cash assistance and another P10 million for the granting of free caskets to the deceased indigent city residents.—/BRP (FREEMAN)