Alan urges government to create mobile apps for efficiency

Senatorial aspirant and Representative Alan Peter Cayetano urged government agencies to make it easier for people to access their financial aid programs amid soaring inflation, suggesting departments use mobile apps to make their processes more efficient. .

“Why do we have to make it hard for people to get help when it’s people’s money,” Cayetano said.

Cayetano pointed out that the government has billions of pesos of funds ready to be distributed to vulnerable sectors through the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Social Welfare and Development and the Ministry of Transport under the national budget. of 5,000 billion pesos for 2022.

However, much-needed aid is being held up by government red tape, fixers positioned in frontline government agencies, and local politicians who act as mediators between national financial aid programs and their respective constituents.

Cayetano said the government’s current situation is a reversal of its previous experiences when a lack of funds made it unable to deliver aid to vulnerable segments of the population.

One of Cayetano’s ways is to leverage technology by developing mobile apps that people can use to process government transactions and receive financial aid through fintech services such as GCash or PayMaya.

“With the digital age and with the mobile phone, you can do almost anything in terms of government transactions by mobile phone,” he said. Maricel V. Cruz

Cayetano also discussed the possibility of continuing at least two financial aid programs he launched in recent years to help Filipinos struggling with the effects of recent record inflation triggered by high fuel prices.

He said his Presyo, Trabaho, Kita (PTK) program, which provided seed capital to small cooperatives across the country, had successfully weaned financially vulnerable transport workers and vendor associations from loan providers. predators, known locally as “five-six” for their high interest rates.

However, as the pandemic hit the country, Cayetano and his private sector partners had to turn to smaller scale, larger impact financial relief initiatives such as Sampung Libong Pag-asa and Sari-saring Pag- asa.

“We will continue to do so in the private sector, and with our public service partners. But it is very important for the government to have this kind of program,” he said.