Palace: Bulk of second tranche of SAP distributed by next week
MANILA, Philippines — The government aims to distribute next week the bulk of the second tranche of aid for sectors sidelined by the coronavirus, Malacañang said Wednesday.
Presidential spokesman Harry Roque said the transfer of funds would be done mainly through electronic means and can be finished in two days.
"Since it's electronic, to those who would be covered, they can distribute in two days’ time, the balance. Those who have no access to electronic payments will still be done manually but this time, it will be disbursed with the assistance of the Armed Forces of the Philippines," Roque told ABS-CBN News Channel.
"Realistically, we are hoping that at least a majority of the P105 billion would already have been disbursed electronically... So we are hoping that at least 60 percent will be done by next week," he added.
The government is spending P205 billion for the social amelioration program (SAP), which is meant to provide emergency subsidies to low-income households and workers whose sources of livelihood were disrupted by quarantine restrictions.
The government has distributed about 98% of the funds allocated for the first tranche of SAP as of June 5.
In a report submitted to Congress last Monday, President Rodrigo Duterte said P99.76 billion billion out of the allotted amount of P101.48 billion has been distributed to 17.64 million beneficiaries.
Roque said the Duterte administration could easily account for the P325 billion set aside for the coronavirus response.
"It's very easy to account for it because a big bulk of it is intended for aid, social amelioration. The rest were spent to buy PPEs (personal protective equipment), medical equipment and even benefits to frontliners. So, we are really going to account for about P100 billion, more or less. And given the number of PPEs and other equipment that we have bought, it’s very easy to account," the Palace spokesman said.
- Latest
- Trending
