3rd tranche of cash aid up to Congress — DSWD

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) assured the people yesterday that the distribution of a third tranche of Social Amelioration Program (SAP) emergency cash aid for poor families amid the cononavirus pandemic will start once Congress passes a new law.

Social Welfare Undersecretary Rene Glen Paje said at a virtual press briefing that the DSWD is ready to distribute another round of cash aid on the back of an enabling law.

He said the position of the government on calls for a third tranche of SAP had already been earlier clarified by presidential spokesman Harry Roque.

Paje pointed out that the DSWD, as the department in charge of social welfare and development programs, is ready to implement the third tranche of the emergency cash aid to be distributed to poor families to soften the impact of the economic slowdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The DSWD is the implementer and we are ready to implement all programs given to us,” Paje said.

He reported that only one-third of the target beneficiaries is left out of the remaining budget for the second tranche of the SAP payout and the distribution is expected to be finished in the next days.

As of yesterday afternoon, Paje said the DSWD had already released P66.4 billion of the SAP second tranche fund, through manual and digital payouts to 10.2 million low-income and vulnerable families eligible to get the second tranche cash aid.

Almost 72.4 percent of the SAP’s second tranche budget had been released to beneficiaries, Paje said.

He said that the second tranche has a target of 14.1 million beneficiaries.

Of the 10.2 million so far paid to eligible families, Paje said that 1,356,298 are family-beneficiaries of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps), 5,202,685 families are low-income, non-4Ps families; 2,638,377 are those from the so-called “waitlisted” families who were left out of the initial list of SAP first tranche; and 1,025,947 families are those “waitlisted” within the ECQ (enhanced community quarantine) areas last May 1 to May 15.

Paje also said local government units (LGUs) have submitted fewer names to the list of beneficiaries that were left out or failed to receive SAP’s second tranche, which resulted in the lower number of second tranche beneficiaries that was recorded at 14.1 million.

Paje said that LGUs had submitted only 3.2 million names for their list of so-called left out families.

The government had allocated more funds to the SAP for the additional 5 million slots for poor and vulnerable families that deserved the SAP aid but were not included in the DSWD list in the first tranche implementation last April.

Paje reiterated an earlier revelation regarding their discovery of numerous cases of beneficiaries who received more than one emergency cash subsidy under SAP projects of other government agencies such as the Department of Agriculture, Department of Labor and Employment and the Social Security System under the Department of Finance.

He said that they also discovered numerous cases of SAP first tranche cash aid recipients who did not fulfill the qualifications to get the subsidy.

At an earlier press briefing, Paje said they tallied 675,933 so-called duplicates, 239,859 ineligible recipients and 58,725 who voluntarily returned or refused the cash aid.