Reelectionist Senator Sonny Angara has appealed to more than 80,000 legitimate jeepney franchise holders to claim their fuel voucher cards so they could start availing themselves of the government’s subsidy under the Pantawid Pasada Program.
“We are encouraging our legitimate jeepney franchise holder who have not yet claimed their Pantawid Pasada card to go to the nearest LTFRB office to get the fuel subsidy alloted to them by the government,” he said.
Angara made the appeal after the Department of Finance reported a low turnout in the distribution of fuel subsidy cards to qualified franchise holders of public utility jeepneys.
As of Jan. 15 this year, the DOF said that only 74,714 fuel vouchers were distributed out of the 155,337 available cards, or 42.43 percent of the total national target coverage for 176,085 legitimate PUJ units. This means that 80,623 cards remain unclaimed.
Under the PPP, which is one of the government’s flagship social mitigation measures, fuel vouchers in the form of cash cards are given to qualified PUJ franchise holders to ensure that they get timely assistance to mitigate the effects of the volatility of fuel prices in the world market.
The fuel subsidies given to each franchise holder amount to P5,000 in 2018 and P20,514 this year.