The COVID-19 pandemic took the world by storm, bringing about a new era – a new normal, adversely affecting people’s health, livelihoods, mentality, and has put a strain on their relationships. In response to the pandemic, governments implemented lockdowns and community quarantines to limit mobility and stymy the spread of the virus. Conjunctively, welfare programs such as income transfers and food programs have been implemented by various organizations to complement government efforts to encourage people to stay at home. During the onset of the of the lockdown in the Philippines in April 2020, the Asian Development Bank implemented the Bayan Bayanihan (BB) food relief program and served approximately 162,000 households across 50 barangays in the National Capital Region and nearby provinces. This study evaluates the effectiveness of the Bayan Bayanihan program in limiting people’s mobility using mobile ping data to measure outward, inward, and within-barangay mobility. A staggered difference-in-differences strategy was employed to identify the effect of the program based on the program’s rollout and intended length of impact. We find only suggestive evidence of a homogenous treatment effect that the program reduced people’s mobility during its days of effectivity. Evidence more consistently supports heterogenous treatment effects, that greater treatment depth – a larger proportion of households receiving the program, leads to lower mobility. These findings suggest that the BB program helped families stay at home and reduce the spread of COVID-19.

JEL codes: D04, I10, O12