FIVE cities in Central Visayas have not yet completed their emergency cash aid distribution under the Social Amelioration Program (SAP), as of 3 p.m. Saturday, May 16, 2020.
These cities are Cebu, Mandaue and Bogo in Cebu Province; Tagbilaran in Bohol; and Dumaguete in Negros Oriental.
Data from the Department of Social Welfare and Development-Central Visayas (DSWD 7) showed that as of 3:41 p.m. Saturday, these cities only had a completion rate of below 80 percent.
Shalaine Lucero, DSWD 7 assistant director, said the completion rate of these cities are as follows: Bogo at 43.34 percent; Mandaue at 73.08 percent; Cebu City at 75.49 percent; Tagbilaran at 75.09 percent; and Dumaguete at 79.99 percent.
Ten other local government units (LGUs) in the region have also yet to finish their distribution of the P6,000 emergency cash aid under SAP.
Only 117 out of 132 LGUs in Central Visayas have finished giving their payouts.
As of noon Saturday, some 957,712 out of the 1,058,075 household beneficiaries in the region already received their SAP financial assistance.
This is equivalent to a total of P5,746,272,000, or about 91 percent of the total P6.3 billion SAP fund.
Lucero said 40 LGUs already finished their liquidations. She added that the validation and posting of the paid beneficiaries are also ongoing.
Republic Act 11469, or the Bayanihan to Heal as One Act, instituted the SAP. It aims to mitigate the effects of the crisis brought about by the coronavirus disease.
The first deadline for the distribution set by the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) was last April 30. It was moved to May 7 and then moved again to May 10.
The DILG announced on Thursday, May 14, that five LGUs in Central Visayas will be issued show-cause orders for allegedly committing infractions in the distribution of the government’s cash aid under its SAP.
The DILG, however, has yet to name these LGUs.
In Mandaue City, Mayor Jonas Cortes attributed the delay in the distribution of the cash aid to the disqualification of listed beneficiaries.
Cortes told Sunstar Cebu that due to the stringent validation of the DSWD, many of those who were initially listed as beneficiaries have been disqualified, resulting to the incomplete distribution of SAP.
The initial list named 55,775 beneficiaries but only 39,704 passed the validation conducted by the DSWD.
On May 12, the City Government was able to distribute financial assistance to 37,707 beneficiaries, including those under the Unconditional Cash Transfer program.
Common concerns in Mandaue included double-entry names of beneficiaries; protest against beneficiaries raised by residents; and the beneficiary is either deceased, currently outside the city, detained or did not show up during the distribution, among others.
Cortes said a portion of the funds that has yet to be distributed was for beneficiaries whose sitios were locked down during the distribution.
These sitios are Sili in Barangay Cambaro, Sitio Gumamela in Barangay Opao and Sitio Asinan in Barangay Mantuyong.
In Sitio Sili, 40 out of 41 SAP beneficiaries already received their cash aid after the lockdown was lifted last week. The other beneficiary was unable to claim the assistance for having double-entry names.
“We are doing our best. We are coordinating with the DSWD and they have an order to distribute (the cash aid),” Cortes said. (WBS, KFD)