The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) said on Monday the low registration turnout at the ReliefAgap app, the failure of the beneficiaries to supply their necessary information, including their phone numbers; and limited mobility of Social Amelioration Porgram (SAP) frontrunners in COVID-stricken areas were among the reasons that delayed the distribution of the second tranche of emergency cash aid.
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DSWD Undersecretary Rene Glen Paje said so far, the agency has covered over 5.1 million households or 30 percent of the 17 million beneficiaries targeted by the SAP 2 program.
“Sinisikap ng DSWD na magawa ang lahat ng proseso para mapabilis ang pamamahagi ng ayuda. (The DSWD is trying its best to do all the necessary processes to expedite the distribution of the cash aid),” he said during the "Laging Handa" press briefing.
Based on the July 26 SAP monitoring data, he said the DSWD has distributed P32.05-million worth of cash subsidies in the second tranche to over 5.1 million SAP 2 beneficiaries, including the “waitlisted" beneficiaries.
According to the DSWD official, the recent list of the SAP 2 beneficiaries include 1.3 million beneficiaries of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps), 2.4 million non-4Ps households, over 1.2 million “waitlisted” beneficiaries, and over 37,000 families of transport network vehicle service (TNVS) and public utility vehicle (PUV) drivers.
He cited the number of reasons that dampened the delivery of cash aid to the SAP 2 recipients. One of the stumbling blocks is the low registration turnout at the DSWD’s ReliefAgap platform, which was launched on May 14 to speed up the process of collecting beneficiaries' data and releasing the SAP subsidies to qualified beneficiaries.
Paje said the DSWD’s quick relief system recorded only over 4.3 million registrations,which prodded them to rely on the local government units’ submission of their encoded list of beneficiaries.
“Duon pa rin tayo umasa sa manual encoding sapagkat 4.3 million lang po ang nagrehistro sa ReliefAgad. May mga benepisyaryo na kulang ang information na naibigay sa kanilang SAC forms, ganun din mo ang mobile phone numbers kaya nagkakaron po tayo ng kakulangan sa impormasyon at hindi rin po agad maipaabot sa kanila ang kanilang benefits (We relied on the manual encoding because only 4.3 million had registered at the ReliefAgad. There are beneficiaries who failed to supply some information in their SAC forms, including their phone numbers, that is why we lack the needed information and we haven’t immediately delivered their benefits),” he explained.
He said the DSWD also encountered difficulties in the deployment of personnel to geographically isolated and disadvantaged areas (GIDAs) and mountainous areas where are the manual payouts are being conducted.
He said they are tasking extra precautions in areas where there are increasing number cases of COVID-19.
"Kabilang sa naging issue natin ang limitadong galaw o mobility (One of the issues is the limited movement or mobility) sapagkat nag-iingat po tayo sa banta ng COVID (because we are taking extra precaution against COVID) kung kaya limitado po ang tao na maidedeploy at ma-iimobilize (that is why the number of personnel who will be deployed and mobilised is limited),” he further explained.
The DSWD is targeting to complete the digital and manual distribution of the second tranche of cash aid by July 31, except in GIDAs and conflict-affected areas.
Eleven areas are covered by the SAP 2 distribution -- Benguet; Pangasinan; Region 3 (except Aurora); National Capital Region (NCR); Region 4-A (Calabarzon); Albay; Iloilo; Bacolod City; Cebu; Zamboanga City; and Davao City.