Senator flags ‘irregularities’ in SAP releases

How can the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) claim 94-percent physical accomplishment in the release of the Social Amelioration Program (SAP) for pandemic-affected sectors if only 80 percent of the funds were actually released?

Senador Panfilo Lacson stressed this point Monday when he interpellated DSWD’s P191.4-billion budget for 2022.

“Something doesn’t add up. The DSWD’s latest data showed that the agency was able to distribute SAP to 717,372 out of 761,259 target beneficiary families. That would constitute 94.23-percent accomplishment as of Aug. 31, 2021,” Lacson said.

But the same report indicated that only 80 percent of DSWD’s funds were used for the SAP.

Hannah Carido of DSWD said they made adjustments in their target beneficiaries from 717,372 to 855,597 in January 2021.

Meanwhile, Lacson told DSWD to learn from its “poor planning” and coordinate with payment service provider Starpay after it was learned that 70 percent of SAP beneficiaries have defective or no mobile phones.

“The DSWD became reactive. It did not determine the beneficiaries’ capability to use mobile phones before distributing the aid, so it had to engage financial service providers. It should have planned first and determined the capability of the beneficiaries to receive aid via mobile phones. The bottom line is poor planning,” Lacson added.

The senator also noted that some local government units faced problems in the distribution of the SAP following complaints that the assistance was not distributed using DSWD’s beneficiary data. It was later learned that the data were compiled in 2015 yet.

“Some barangay chairmen agreed among themselves to just redistribute the P5,000 to P8,000 accordingly because the list provided by the DSWD central office was outdated. They wanted to adapt to the situation on the ground. We cannot fault the LGUs,” Lacson said.