House Speaker martin Romualdez (file)

MANILA – Members of the House of Representatives and the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) are set to distribute rice and financial aid to at least 2.5 million Filipinos in the next weeks under the “Malaya Rice Project,” Speaker Ferdinand Martin G. Romualdez said on Thursday night.

“We have a pilot project that we are dubbing ‘Malaya Rice’, which is like freedom from all the rice burdens. We are doing this in conjunction with DSWD Secretary Rex Gatchalian, and we envision this pilot to cover all 33 congressional districts (of Metro Manila),” Romualdez said in a news conference at the Manila Golf and Country Club in Makati.

He said the Malaya rice distribution is in line with President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr.’s program of trying to bring affordable, quality rice to the people, particularly those in most need.

The leader of the House said he had already asked the concerned 33 House members to identify 10,000 indigent residents who would receive the rice assistance, including senior citizens, solo parents and persons with disabilities (PWDs).

He said each beneficiary would receive PHP1,000 and 15 kilos of rice, with the whole process of identification of beneficiaries and actual distribution for the National Capital Region (NCR) taking less than a month.

“We would like to have this done and replicated in other metro areas. And this will hopefully help alleviate the burden on the people and especially in the non-rice producing areas,” Romualdez said.

He said the House would also be using the same mechanism, this time to identify at least two rice-producing areas to buy the palay from rice growers, to afford better prices not just for the consumers, but also for the farmers themselves.

The Speaker pointed out that this month’s rice distribution “will just be the first round.”

“We’ll try to do this in other areas like in Metro Cebu, Davao, in the big areas. And then further fan out throughout the country, even in the rice producing areas, with the intent of buying palay at the right prices so that we make sure that everyone is afforded quality and affordable rice,” he said.

With more than 250 legislative districts in the country and an initial target of 10,000 recipients in each district, the program will benefit at least 2.5 million Filipinos.

Romualdez stressed that the project is “not a one-shot deal.”

“This will be just the first round. And once it is successful, and I’m confident that it will be, we will be able to replicate this and do further successive rounds of this,” he said. (PNA)