Only around 5.1 million beneficiaries have received their cash aid under the second tranche of the social amelioration program (SAP) of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD).
In an interview over PTV on Monday, DSWD Undersecretary Rene Paje said they have already released P32.05 billion for the said beneficiaries.
Of the said beneficiaries, 1.3 million are beneficiaries of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps); 2.4 million are low-income families, who are not 4Ps beneficiaries; 1.2 million are among the wait-listed SAP beneficiaries; and 37,000 are drivers of transport network vehicles services (TNVS) and public-utility jeepneys (PUJ).
Paje admitted they are still lagging behind their target of providing SAP benefits to 12 million beneficiaries for the second round of the SAP despite their adoption of cashless delivery scheme, which was initially expected to speed up the distribution of cash aid.
However, he noted that only 4.3 million people have registered in their Relief Agad application, which would have facilitated the cashless distribution.
Another cause for the delayed distribution, Paje said was the manual pay outs they have to do in isolated areas and their limited mobility capability during the community quarantine.
DSWD is targeting to complete the distribution of the second tranche of SAP before the end of the month.
Ongoing evaluation
IN a related development, Paje also reported that they have yet to get the liquidation report from all of the local government units (LGU), which helped in the distribution of the first tranche of SAP.
“For now, 1,591 out of 1,634 LGUs have submitted their partial or complete liquidation reports,” Paje said.
He said they had already sent some personnel to help with the LGUs, which still have no liquidation reports, to help in the encoding of the concerned beneficiaries.
“DSWD continues to do its best to speed up the distribution of the cash aid,” Paje said.
Base on their evaluation of the said reports, he said 300 local officials were charged for alleged irregularities in the SAP distribution.
DSWD was able to provide cash aid worth P99.7 billion to 17.6 million beneficiaries during the first tranche of their SAP distribution.
Image credits: DSWD NCR