CLARK FREEPORT -- The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) explained the reasons for the reduction in the number of qualified beneficiaries for the second tranche of the Social Amelioration Program (SAP) to 14,117,957.
DSWD said that one reason for the decrease is the stringent validation and deduplication process that was conducted to ensure that only qualified low-income families will receive assistance and that there will be no duplication of assistance from other government agencies providing aid.
As of August 1, a total of 842,014 families received duplicate assistance after they were cross-matched with databases of the DSWD’s Emergency Subsidy Program and Pantawid Pamillyang Pilipino Program (4Ps), as well as with the Department of Agriculture’s Financial Subsidy to Rice Farmers (DA-FSRF), Department of Labor and Employment’s Covid-19 Adjustment Measures Program (DOLE-Camp), and the Department of Finance-Social Security System’s Small Business Wage Subsidy Program (DOF-SSS-SBWSP).
Likewise, the DSWD found around 200,000 of the identified beneficiaries to be ineligible.
DSWD further explained that local government units (LGUs) were unable to produce 5 million families to comprise the roster of waitlisted beneficiaries and only submitted more than 3.2 million names. They also have not completely uploaded the encoded Social Amelioration Card (SAC) forms, which serve as the basis for the department’s processes in coming up with its clean list of beneficiaries for the second tranche and the waitlisted.
DSWD disclosed that the new target now covers 1.3 million 4Ps beneficiaries in ECQ areas; 7.2 million non-4Ps beneficiaries in ECQ areas from May 1 to 15; 3.2 million waitlisted families nationwide who did not receive the first tranche; and 2.1 million waitlisted families in ECQ areas from May 1 to 15.
Likewise, beneficiaries of DOLE’s Tulong Panghanapbuhay sa Ating Disadvantaged/Displaced Workers (Tupad) and DA’s Financial Subsidy to Rice Farmers (FSRF) are also in the new list of SAP recipients, with DSWD providing the top-up assistance.
It can be recalled that under Executive Order No. 112, S. of 2020 dated April 30, 2020, and the Memorandum issued by Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea on May 2, 2020, identifies the ECQ areas that include Central Luzon except Aurora Province, National Capital Region, Calabarzon, Benguet, Pangasinan, Iloilo, Cebu Province, Bacolod City, Davao City, Albay Province and Zamboanga City.
The DSWD assures the public that the excess funds from the reduced number of beneficiaries for the second tranche of SAP would still be used judiciously in government efforts to address the ongoing pandemic.