MANKAYAN, Benguet – The municipal government was able to complete the distribution of the Social Amelioration Program (SAP) financial assistance amounting to P5,500 to the identified beneficiaries in the town’s 12 barangays beating the prescribed deadline for the release of the first tranche of cash aid.
Mayor Frenzel Ayong said that there had been a significant number of families that are qualified to be recipients of the financial assistance but they were not included because of the limited quota that was given to the municipality by the social welfare department which is in charge of the validation of the qualified beneficiaries.
Based on the 2015 survey of the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), 52 percent of the town’s over 9,300 households are qualified to beneficiaries of the SAP.
However, Ayong disclosed that based on the inventory of the households that was recently conducted in the 12 barangays, the actual number of households in the locality increased to over 10,500 which the local government used as a basis in the distribution of the 10 kilos of rice as part of its relief assistance to the residents who were all heavily impacted by the implementation of the extended Luzonwide enhanced community quarantine.
The local chief executive claimed that the local government tried to make the appropriate representation with the social welfare department for the inclusion of some 75 percent of the households to the SAP but the same was not approved and that it settled to only 52 percent as qualified beneficiaries for the grant of the financial assistance for April and May.
“We will try our best to look for other programs of concerned government agencies and the local government that will provide available assistance to those who were not included in the final list of beneficiaries of the government’s social amelioration program. We understand that most of us need whatever available assistance because of the impact of the ECQ to our economy and the living condition of our people,” Mayor Ayong stressed.
According to him, the local government and the social welfare department exerted extra effort in validating the qualified beneficiaries for the SAP to prevent the occurrence of unnecessary questions that will be raised in the future that some of those included in the list are not actually qualified to get the financial assistance that could result to the filing of charges against the unqualified recipients, the assigned social workers and the barangay officials aside from reimbursing to the government that received grant.
He called on the families that were not included in the final list of beneficiaries of the SAP not to take the same against the barangay and municipal officials and the social workers assigned to validate their qualifications because they simply did their job in ensuring that the government’s financial assistance will go to the deserving recipients for them to be able to cope with the prevailing impact of the extended ECQ and for them to be able to have a fresh start in looking for sustainable sources of income that will improve the living condition of their families once the ECQ will be downgraded to general community quarantine after May 15, 2020.
By Hent
Photo by Armando M. Bolislis
