The Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) and Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) will take the lead in distributing cash aid in some “disorganized” local government units (LGUs) where the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) is imposed.

“You (DILG and DSWD) take over the distribution of the assistance and whatever aid the national government could give to the local government units that know nothing and could not properly organize the distribution and it only results in disorders. So I temporarily took it away from them and I will assign it to the DILG and DSWD. So for the meantime, do it until they learn,” said President Rodrigo Duterte in his pre-recorded Talk to the People.

Duterte said some LGUs don’t know how to set up an organized distribution process of cash assistance.

“You see it’s all in television that these mayors know nothing so for the meantime let’s remove their responsibility to distribute the money and other assistance from the national government,” he said in Filipino.

He did not name the LGUs but pointed out their mistakes on the pandemic responses had happened several times.

“In so many instances, they cannot organize,” he said. “And several times they blamed other people other than himself.”

DILG Secretary Eduardo Año said the government has allocated P10.89 billion funds to more than 10 million low-income Filipinos residing in the National Capital Region, which is now under the most restrictive quarantine classifications, effective until August 20.

Meanwhile, Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque, in a Palace press briefing on Monday, said the poor families in the provinces of Laguna and Bataan, which are also under ECQ, are set to receive cash assistance.

Roque said the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) has proposed giving P2.715 billion for Laguna’s poor households while budget for Bataan is still being determined by the DBM and DILG.

Each qualified resident in the ECQ areas may receive cash assistance of P1,000 each or up to a maximum P4,000 per family.