<mark>beneficiaries against existing records; 4) facilitate the issuance of temporary ID cards to be used for obtaining their cash transfers; 5) prepare necessary documentation for replacing lost cards and provide new, permanent credentials.</mark><sup>80</sup> <mark>The validation exercise and other essential administrative steps, were carried out quickly enough to enable the release of a total of P550.5 million (US$12.5 million) 4Ps cash grants to Yolanda affected 4Ps beneficiaries between November 2013 and February 2014.</mark><sup>81</sup> <mark>It should be emphasized that these were regular CCT grants due to the beneficiaries, disaster or no disaster. The difference was that the compliance with conditions was voided.</mark> <mark>DSWD also demonstrated resourcefulness and flexibility in locating and facilitating the validation of displaced 4Ps households that had left the affected regions. Reportedly, by January 2014, 23,000 individuals from Yolanda affected areas had arrived in the Metro Manila region. Public announcements were broadcast to inform displaced 4Ps beneficiaries that they could contact the respective 4Ps city or municipal links in the area where they were residing to claim their benefits. If the beneficiaries had lost their identification documents, they were identified and validated against the 4Ps beneficiary database.</mark> <mark>Both the World Food Program (WFP) and UNICEF decided to utilize the 4Ps system to deliver further ‘top up’ grants to affected 4Ps beneficiaries. This process of topping up DSWD’s 4Ps grants represents the primary example of DSWD-humanitarian coordination in response to Yolanda. The WFP agreed to work with DSWD in the validation of 4Ps beneficiaries, subsequently disbursing two separate top up grants to validated beneficiaries through the 4Ps payment system. The Memorandum of Understanding entered into between WFP and DSWD stated that, “[DSWD and WFP] agree to collaborate in assisting Typhoon Yolanda through the joint implementation of the</mark> _<mark>Emergency Cash Transfer Top-Up Project for Typhoon Yolanda Affected Populations in 4Ps Areas</mark>_ <mark>(EUCT) by which WFP shall grant additional emergency cash grants to qualified beneficiaries of the 4Ps program on top of DSWD’s regular cash grant”.</mark><sup>82</sup> <mark>It was agreed that payment would be delivered through the 4Ps existing payment modalities (including the Land Bank of the Philippines, Philippines Post, Prepaid Card and Globe Cash (mobile payments)). The first transfers were delivered quickly between December 2013 and January 2014, and the second between January 2014 and February 2014. Each transfer amounted to a fixed amount of PHP1300 (US$30) per beneficiary household.</mark> <mark>Replicating the top-up initiative of WFP, UNICEF subsequently delivered a series of top up cash grants through the 4Ps, targeted to 4Ps beneficiaries in the worst affected region, Eastern Samar. As UNICEF wrote in the Memorandum of Agreement with DSWD, “DSWD and UNICEF appreciate the growing recognition of cash transfers as an effective tool to meet emergency and early recovery needs, recognize the 4Ps program as a robust targeting platform identifying the poorest of the poor in routine social welfare programming and identify shared priorities within the UCT and CCT programs for program efficiency and effectiveness to include: efficiency in expenditures and adequate service provision”.</mark><sup>83</sup> <mark>DSWD had assessed that the province of Eastern Samar was the worst affected by Yolanda, and as such UNICEF specifically selected it for the delivery of its top up grants. It was agreed that DSWD would identify, consolidate and validate a database of 5,801 4Ps beneficiary households in the five worst affected provinces of Eastern Samar.</mark><sup>84</sup> <mark>The UNICEF top-ups consisted of a cash grant amount of PHP 4,370 (US$100) per month, for six months, delivered between July and December 2014. DSWD and UNICEF monitoring of the program during the period July through September 2014 reveal that within the first 3 months of implementation PHP75,609,600 (US$1,700,000) of UNICEF grants had been disbursed to 4Ps beneficiaries in the five municipalities of Eastern Samar, reaching 5,728 households in August and 5,739 households in September.</mark><sup>85</sup> <mark>However, non-4Ps poor and vulnerable households are excluded from the cash transfer, and any donor funded top-ups, because the 4Ps’ system does not have the flexibility to reach non-4Ps households. Being a CCT with conditionality temporarily removed, the beneficiaries received the grants that they were due ahead of time, upon being validated. Poor households without children, near poor households tipped into</mark> 24