By Fernan Angeles

THE Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) seemed to be taking more time in the distribution of the government cash subsidy supposedly intended to help alleviate the hardships of local folks for the month of May.

To this date, the DSWD has only been able to distribute around P63.2 billion under the second tranche of the government’s Social Amelioration Program (SAP) amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

DSWD spokesperson Irene Dumlao said the amount was distributed to more than 9.7 million beneficiaries of the program — “That is actually 69.2 percent ng ating accomplishment,” Dumlao said, despite the challenges the agency encountered in the distribution, citing limitations in their mobility for beneficiaries in far areas.

Dumlao said there are now more than 3.2 million “waitlisted” families — or those who were not included in the distribution during the first tranche but were added in the second tranche.

The DSWD mouthpiece added that their agency continues to coordinate with financial service providers such as banks and electronic money issuers for faster distribution.

Asked what is causing so much delay in the distribution of the aid, Dumlao said the agency has conducted name-matching of beneficiaries from data bases of other government agencies also implementing the program and found more than 200,000 families ineligible for the program, or those unqualified but still received aid.

The government’s Social Amelioration Program aims to give emergency cash subsidy of P5,000 to P8,000 for two months to low-income families affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

45600cookie-checkDSWD: P63.2B of SAP 2nd tranche already distributedyes