The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) expressed readiness Saturday, July 3, to face any investigation regarding the supposed P10.4 billion worth of missing Social Amelioration Program (SAP) funds, and its alleged failure to serve 1.3 beneficiaries due to use of Starpay e-wallet.
DSWD spokesperson Irene Dumlao said they are “willing” to shed light on the allegations hurled by Sen. Manny Pacquiao against the government’s handling of SAP distribution, particularly the digital payment of the second tranche of cash subsidies under the already-lapsed Republic Act No. 11469 or the “Bayanihan to Heal as One Act", popularly known as Bayanihan 1.
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“DSWD is willing to face any investigating body and present the necessary evidences/documents to clarify those raised by the good Senator,” she said in a Viber message.
“In fact, the agency has attended several congressional hearings relative to the SAP implementation,” Dumlao added.
Both the House of Representatives and the Senate had launched congressional inquiries into the confusion, delays and alleged irregularities in the distribution of the SAP cash subsidies.
In a virtual presser on Saturday afternoon, Pacquiao revealed that P10.4 billion worth of SAP funds were not given to beneficiaries. He claimed that more or less P50 billion was allocated for Starpay e-wallet service when it purportedly just had paid up capital of P62,000.
In April this year, the DSWD terminated its engagement with financial service providers (FSPs) and decided to conduct manual payouts for unserved SAP beneficiaries.
Under RA No. 11469 or Bayanihan 1, around 18 million low-income households were entitled to receive their emergency subsidy amounting to P5,000 to P8,000 for two months.
The DSWD had noted that for the first tranche of SAP, it disbursed P99.9 billion to over 17.6 million family beneficiaries.
For the second tranche, it distributed over P87 billion worth of emergency cash subsidies through manual and digital payouts to 14.5 million family-beneficiaries.