THE Department of Social Welfare and Development yesterday said there are no missing funds, and all allocations under the special amelioration program (SAP) are accounted for.
DSWD Director and spokeswoman Irene Dumlao said the department is willing to cooperate with any new investigation on the SAP distribution and submit any document pertaining to the cash subsidy program after Sen. Manny Pacquiao on Saturday said P10.4 billion worth of SAP funds did not reach the beneficiaries.
Pacquiao questioned the use of the unknown e-wallet Starpay to distribute around P50 billion worth of SAP when it reportedly only has a P62,000 paid-up capital, and said only 500,000 of 1.8 million beneficiaries successfully used the Starpay application.
He bared this and other alleged anomalies after President Duterte dared him to name the alleged corrupt agencies, in the course of a word war and amid infighting in the ruling PDP-Laban party of which Duterte is chairman and Pacquiao is president or acting president, depending on which camp is talking.
Dumlao said that in April 2021, all SAP funds downloaded to financial service providers, including Starpay, that had not been distributed, were returned to the DSWD which the department then distributed manually to the beneficiaries.
“Nais din nating bigyang diin na walang nawawala pondo hinggil sa SAP implementation at all our financial transactions are accounted for (We would like to emphasize that there are no missing funds in out SAP implementation at all our financial transactions are accounted for),” Dumlao said in an interview with ABS-CBN’s TeleRadyo.
She could not say how much fund has been returned to the DSWD and how many beneficiaries were affected.
She said DSWD is conducting the manual payout which the department aims to complete this month.
“The FSPs, kabilang ang Starpay, ni-liquidate po lahat ng budget na kanilang natanggap at kung anuman ang pondo na hindi naibigay duon sa ating unserved beneficiaries ay kanila naman pong ni-refund sa DSWD and this refunded amount is now being distributed duon sa natitira pang SAP beneficiaries (The FSPs, including Starpay, liquidated all the funds they received and the remaining funds that were not given to our unserved beneficiaries were refunded to DSWD and this refunded amount is now being distributed to the remaining unserved SAP beneficiaries),” she said.
In an interview with radio radio dzBB, Dumlao said Starpay and the other FSPs such as GCash, Paymaya, Robinsons Bank, RCBC and Union Bank were tapped in the distribution of the SAP 2 with technical assistance from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP).
DSWD distributed SAP 1 via manual payout and tapped the FSPs to help speed up the distribution of SAP 2.
Dumlao reiterated the DSWD is ready to attended congressional hearings and present reports for transparency, as it had done. She said DSWD has also been submitting regular financial reports to oversight agencies and to the Office of the President for transparency. — With Raymond Africa
