The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) maintained Thursday, Oct. 14, that all funds given to financial service providers tapped for the digital distribution of the Social Amelioration Program (SAP) cash aid were “all accounted for.”
DSWD Assistant Secretary Glenda Relova said the claims that the P10.4 billion worth of SAP funds went missing were unfounded.
“Binibigyang diin ng departamento na ang lahat ng pondo na binigay po sa ating financial service providers ay accounted for at wala po tayong nawawala na pondo. Ang lahat po ng ayuda na pinapamahagi ay sinuportahan ng liquidation reports na isinumbit ng ating financial service providers (The department emphasizes that all funds given to our financial service providers are accounted for and we have no missing funds. All aid disbursed is supported by liquidation reports submitted by our financial service providers),” she said during the Laging Handa briefing.
Senator Manny Pacquiao had alleged 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.
Aside from Starpay, Robinsons Bank, Unionbank, RCBC, Gcash, and Paymaya were also tapped for SAP 2 digital distribution.
Relova reassured the public that the processes adopted by FSPs and the DSWD on payouts were in accordance with Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP)-approved processes and existing government accounting rules and procedures.
She said 80 percent of the SAP funds has been disbursed, while 20 percent of unused funds has been reverted back to the Bureau of the Treasury (BTr).
She said Starpay returned P8.2 billion to the DSWD because of “data quality issues” concerning the beneficiaries, such as inaccurate names and wrong addresses.
“Ang halaga po na P8.2 billion ito po ay ginamit namin para mag-reprocess tayo at mabayaran ang ating benepisyaryo sa pamamagitan ng ating Field Offices sa pamamagitan ng ating special disbursing officers (We used this amount, P8.2 billion for our reprocessing and pay our beneficiaries through our Field Offices through our special disbursing officers),” she said.
In April this year, the DSWD terminated its engagement with FSPs and decided to conduct manual payouts for unserved SAP beneficiaries.
Under Republic Act 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.