The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) announced on Saturday, Sept. 10 that the online registration for its educational assistance program for students-in-crisis has been closed after reaching 2 million registered individuals.

“Sa ating mga kababayan, kinalulungkot man po namin, pero yung sistema po namin ay hindi na po kaya yun atin pong dami nung ating mga aplikante, nasa 2 million plus na po ito pong aplikante online (To our countrymen, we are sorry, but our system is no longer able to handle the number of our applicants, there are already 2 million plus applicants online,” DSWD spokesperson Assistant Secretary Romel Lopez said in a virtual briefing.

“Ito pong nangyayari sa atin ngayon, napilitan na po tayo na talagang isara na po yung ating online registration ng sa ganun po ay mas mapagtuunan natin ng pansin na maiproseso yung mga aplikasyon na meron na po tayo (With what is happening now, we have been forced to close our online registration so that we can focus more on processing the applications we already have),” Lopez added.

The DSWD admitted the agency can no longer handle the huge volume of applicants.

“Inamin naman po ni Secretary medyo luma na po yung ginagamit naming sistema. And then ngayon lang po ito nakaranas ng ganitong volume po ng mga aplikante (Secretary Erwin Tulfo has already admitted that the system we are using is quite old. And then only now has the agency experienced this volume of applicants),” Lopez said.

“Pero huwag sila mag-alala dahil yun pong mga nakapag-register na ay patuloy po naming ipo-proseso (But don’t worry because we will continue to process those who have already registered),” he added.

DSWD’s consolidated report showed that P735 million in educational aid has been distributed to 293,205 student-beneficiaries in the past four Saturdays.

Of the total student-beneficiaries, 88,084 are in elementary (P88.71 million); 65,896 are in junior high school (P131.71 million); 41,766 in senior high school (P125.96 million); and 97,408 in college/vocational school (P388.75 million).

Lopez said that the DSWD may provide assistance to an additional 250,000 to 300,000 students-in-crisis with the remaining funds.

“Down to last two Saturdays na lang tayo, hanggang Sept. 24, and then wala na tayong magiging extension (We’re down to the last two Saturdays, until Sept. 24, and we will not have an extension),” Lopez said.

He said that Tulfo had a meeting with House Speaker Martin Romualdez where they discussed the possible continuation of the educational payout through the help of the district representatives.

“Yun pong hindi mako-cover ng DSWD sa amin pong pondo na P1.5 billion medyo paubos na po ito, more than half na ang nagagamit natin, so ito po’y iko-cover na ng ating mga district representatives. Sila na po ang magdidisburse ng kanilang pondo (The DSWD cannot cover all beneficiaries with our P1.5 billion fund because our fund is about to be depleted. We have already released more than half of it. So our district representatives may cover it as they will disburse their own funds),” Lopez said.

He added the DSWD will probably complete the guidelines by next week after another meeting between Tulfo and Romualdez.

“With this, umaasa po tayo na sa pagpasok naman po ng ating mga mambabatas ay yung ating mga maiiwanan, hindi masasakop nitong ating mga 2 million na aplikante ay maaaring sila naman po ang maabot ng ating mga mambabatas sa pagtulong nila sa atin sa ating pamamahagi ng educational payout (With this, let’s hope that when our legislators help us, those who may have been left behind, who were not included in the two million applicants, our legislators may reach them by helping us in our distribution of educational payout),” he said.