and JOCELYN MONTEMAYOR
THE Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) will slap show-cause orders against 43 mayors for poor performance in the distribution of the first tranche of the cash assistance under the Social Amelioration Program.
Interior Secretary Eduardo Año on Thursday said the mayors will be asked to explain why they have yet to complete the April payout of the cash subsidy, which was intended to help 18 million poor families affected by the national health emergency spawned by the coronavirus disease (COVID-19).
LGUs were given an extension of until May 10 to finish the distribution of the P5,000 to P8,000 cash aid for the month of April to eligible beneficiaries in their jurisdictions.
As of Wednesday, Año said the SAP payout rate throughout the country was at 97 percent. “The DILG and the public deserves to know why they failed to complete their distribution,” he said referring to the LGUs, which he said had 79 percent or less accomplishment rates in the distribution of the SAP assistance.
Año said 11 of the mayors are from Western Visayas, while eight are from MIMAROPA.
The others are from Central Visayas (five), National Capital Region and Davao region (four each), Ilocos region, Cagayan Valley, CALABARZON, Eastern Visayas and Northern Mindanao (two each); and Central Luzon (one).
Social Welfare Secretary Rolando Bautista, during the Laging Handa network briefing, said 1,007 of the 1,634 LGUs nationwide have completed the distribution of the SAP cash subsidies in their communities.
Bautista also said that 139 local chief executives had already completed their liquidation reports while 69 others had submitted partial liquidation reports.
Once the liquidation is completed, DSWD can start preparing the funds for the second tranche of the SAP aid in May while validating if the liquidation report and list of beneficiaries who received the April payout are accurate.
Bautista said the government had already distributed P94.3 billion out of the P100 billion SAP allocation for April, benefiting 16.7 million low income families, including Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) beneficiaries and drivers of transit network vehicles (TNVs) and public utility vehicles operating in Metro Manila.
MAY PAYOUT
Presidential spokesman Harry Roque, in a briefing in Malacañang, said some LGUs have already started the distribution of the May payout.
“Simula na po iyan, kung hindi po ako nagkakamali. Ang kinakailangan lang po is mapakita na natapos na nila iyong first tranche. At may mga lugar po na namimigay na ng second tranche (It has already started, if I am correct. They only need to show that they already completed the first trance. Some places had already started distributing second tranche),” he said.
But DSWD undersecretary Danilo Pamonag said they are still waiting for an executive order from the Office of the President governing the distribution of the SAP aid for May before the agency can start the payout of the second tranche.
Bautista the other day estimated that the subsidy would benefit 11.1 million poor families living under the modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ) and the five million families that had been left out from the first tranche in April.
Pamonag said the issuance would state whether the SAP aid would be given to all the recipients of the first tranche in April or it would be limited to recipients from the areas that are under MECQ.
Pamonag said the DSWD might already take over the distribution of the cash aid for May and do it through cash transfer services like PayMaya and GCash, or banks.
To hasten the validation of SAP beneficiaries and distribution of the cash aid, DSWD had also worked with the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) for the development of a mobile phone application called ReliefAgad (reliefagad.ph), an electronic application which contains the pertinent data of target beneficiaries. The data of beneficiaries may be encoded personally by SAP beneficiaries using the application or by their local government units, if they do not have access to the internet and smartphones.
