CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY (PIA)–About 3,723 Social Amelioration Program (SAP) beneficiaries in the country have returned the cash assistance they received for the first tranche due to duplication of aid they obtained from the government and in the region, the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) received about P14.5 million from about 2,400 cash aid returnees.
During the daily Laging Handa Network Briefing with Presidential Communications Secretary Martin Andanar, DSWD Sec. Rolando Bautista said the P20.3 million returned cash assistance will be added to the second tranche of SAP distribution.
“Yung unang dinownload sa atin ng DBM (Department of Budget and Management) may kakulangan. Ang mangyayari lahat ng unutilized funds na ibinaba sa local government units ay idagdag po ito sa second tranche. Doon sa 3,723, kung saang region sinauli doon magiging karagdagan sa second tranche ng SAP para hindi na magrerequest sa DBM ng additional budget,” the secretary added.
(The downloaded funds from the Department of Budget and Management is insufficient. The unutilized funds downloaded to the local government units will be added to the second tranche. For the 3,723 who returned the assistance, the fund will be added to the region where they come from for the second tranche of SAP implementation. Thus, we will no longer request for additional budget from DBM)
Bautista said the beneficiaries have returned the SAP assistance since there are also other government agencies that provided aid during the coronavirus disease (COVID)-19 crisis. These include the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), Department of Agriculture (DA), Social Security System (SSS), and Department of Finance (DOF).
For the first tranche of SAP distribution, about 17.6 million families have already received the cash assistance with a total disbursement of P99.8 billion. In the region, there are 626,251 families served as of June 10 with P3,756,633,950 SAP disbursement.
About 99.66 percent has been disbursed throughout the region and only 0.49 percent is left unpaid or P18,584,050 is needed to be disbursed.
Throughout the country, 1,101 out of 1,550 LGUs have already submitted the liquidation report and 223 LGUs have submitted the partial liquidation report. (RTP/PIA 10)
