Village execs, government staff among 20 thousand ineligble SAP recipients

CEBU, Philippines —  Some barangay officials and workers in different local government units in Cebu island were among the over 20,000 individuals found to be ineligible recipients of the national government’s Emergency Subsidy Program (ESP) through the Social Amelioration Program(SAP).

The ESP through SAP under the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) is a form of Assistance to Individuals in Crisis Situation (AICS) and livelihood assistance grants (LAG) to families qualified as low-income households in areas under community quarantine due to COVID-19.

In Cebu island, a total of 20,327 from 42 LGUs, including the three highly-urbanized cities of Cebu, Mandaue and Lapu-Lapu, were identified so far as ineligible for the cash assistance based on the Commission on Audit’s annual report. Each recipient received P6,000.

Among the reasons of ineligibility include duplication in the ESP among family members; those received pay-outs under the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program(4Ps), and COVID Adjustment Measure Program(CAMP) grant or the Tulong Panghanapbuhay para sa Displaced/Disadvantaged Worker(TUPAD); employees of the private sector and government; retired individuals with pension; and families of elected and appointment government officials. 

Ineligible

As identified earlier, Mandaue City has the most ineligible recipients with 5,827 followed by Talisay City (2,629) with most of them as no dependents, Balamban town (1,180), Daanbantayan town (862), and Carcar City with 564.

The five LGUs with the lowest number of recipients, on the other hand, include San Fernando town with 3, Santa Fe town (15), Bogo City (22), Argao town (37), and Minglanilla town (40).

With every peso count, COA did not let the three ineligible recipients in San Fernando go away with it; more so, as they were found to be a councilman, a health worker and  the barangay treasurer, all from Barangay Liburon.

COA also saw Sibonga with 23 ineligible recipients working in the government. Six of them were LGU employees, two barangays secretaries, nine kagawads and eight spouses of barangay officials.

Argao, on the other hand, also had 13 councilmen and two barangay treasurers found to have been included in the list of beneficiaries.

Minglanilla, for its part, had two regular employees of an unnamed office and 33 of its job orders also received SAP along with four kagawads who were told to return the money received.

Other LGUs also had some recipients that their permanent, job orders and barangay officials found to be ineligible, but were not specified in the COA report as to how many.

Refund

LGUs have been directed to inform and send out communications to ineligible recipients to return the money it received as well as submit an explanation for failure to detect such deficiencies.

At least 1,062 identified ineligible recipients have already returned the amount they received in full, two partially, while others had promised to return the money received once they have extra money at hand already.

So far, though, 15 ineligible recipients from Santa Fe town have already returned the money received. Whereabouts of those ineligible were not included in the report unlike in the other LGUs.

Aside from the amount the ineligible recipients’ money returned, a total of P1.59 million was also returned to DSWD by Lapu-Lapu City.

Unutilized funds by LGUs and those from ineligible recipients are expected to be remitted back to DSWD for the government to be able to use the funds for other priority programs and projects amid the pandemic.

Savings

The national government through DSWD downloaded P3.11 billion of SAP funds to 37 LGUs here. (Note: There are some LGUs that have incomplete summary of findings and recommendations from COA, if not, do not have specific amounts of funding for SAP).

But with some ineligible recipients noted, the government could have saved at least P7.96 million and a million pesos more for unclaimed and unused funds. — KQD (FREEMAN)