QUALIFIED low-income households that did not receive any amelioration assistance during the first and second tranches of the Social Amelioration Program (SAP) of the government’s Bayanihan 1 can still receive cash aid under Bayanihan 2 law.
Shalaine Lucero, Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) 7 assistant director, said they will be referred to as “additional beneficiaries” who will be receiving P6,000 cash.
Lucero said: “In other words, they are left-outs. Since they have not received from SAP 1 and 2, we will have them covered under Bayanihan 2.”
She said, however, they will be stricter and more focused when it comes to scrutinizing the list of beneficiaries submitted by the local government units (LGUs) as they do not want to commit the same mistakes in the SAP 1 and 2, particularly inclusion errors.
Lucero said for Bayanihan 2, 67 LGUs in the region have endorsed a total of 37,409 households.
However, based on their deduplication and validation, the DSWD 7 generated a clean list with only 27,147 qualified beneficiaries.
She said: “That’s a difference of about 10,300. It is really a challenge since we found out that there are LGUs that still endorse names of those who did not receive aid from SAP 2 but already received aid during SAP 1.”
She said cash advance for the program is ongoing and they hope to start the distribution next week.
Meanwhile, Lucero said 174 low-income households from Bohol that were affected by granular lockdowns have also received P6,000 cash aid under their Emergency Subsidy Program (ESP) under the Bayanihan 2 law.
This totaled to about P1,044,000.
Lucero said these 174 families are part of the first batch of 235 low-income household beneficiaries who were placed under granular lockdown since the time the Bayanihan 2 law was approved on Sept. 19.
Of the remaining unpaid, 56 are Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program beneficiaries who will be receiving their aid through their cash cards.
She said they will make sure that all benieficiaries will receive their dues before the law expires on Dec. 19.
Lucero said the cash subsidy is intended only for those low-income households affected by granular lockdowns.
Aside from Bohol, the agency also recently received a report from Zamboangita, Negros Oriental that a community of about 400 families has been placed under granular lockdown.
Lucero said granular lockdown-affected families of any LGU will be provided assistance as long as a signed Regional Inter-Agency Task Force (RIATF) 7 resolution supports it. / WBS