Palace: SAP for GCQ areas if supplemental budget passed

MANILA, Philippines — Households in areas where quarantine measures have been relaxed will receive aid if Congress passes a supplemental budget to fund the government’s Social Amelioration Program (SAP).

Presidential spokesman Harry Roque Jr. yesterday said the existing budget for SAP would not be enough to cover all the areas placed under quarantine due to the coronavirus pandemic.?Roque said the government had intended to distribute the second tranche of SAP only in areas still under enhanced community quarantine (ECQ).

“Because the P205-billion funding is limited and because we have given assistance to 23 million (households), not just 18 million for the first tranche, there won’t be enough funds for the second tranche if we give aid to everyone,” Roque told radio station dzBB in Filipino.“The question now is whether we have enough funds that can be realigned (for coronavirus response). If we have, then there is no problem. If we don’t, and the leadership of the Senate, especially Senate President Tito Sotto, wants everyone to receive aid, then we need to pass a supplemental budget,” he said.

Asked whether areas under the more lenient general community quarantine (GCQ) would be given subsidies once the government finds funding sources, Roque replied: “Yes. For now, only those in areas that are under ECQ or MECQ (modified enhanced community quarantine) are assured of aid.” “The message of the President is, in his heart, he wants everyone to be given aid. We will see if it can be done, if we can find (sources) of revenue,” he added. ?Economic managers have noted that the government could not have a supplemental budget if it has not identified sources of funds.

On Friday, Roque announced that President Duterte would seek a supplemental budget to bankroll the second tranche of emergency aid program for sectors sidelined by the quarantine.

Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Governor Benjamin Diokno cited the need for a supplemental budget, saying it would allow the government to create jobs at a time when the economy is being battered by the pandemic.

Roque said the memorandum on the second tranche of SAP is expected to be released “anytime now.”

“We have to start in areas under ECQ. If we find funds for everyone, it (distribution of aid to GCQ areas) would follow,” the Palace spokesman said.

If the program is to be implemented, Quezon City Rep. Precious Castelo said this should be done in a “more orderly manner of distribution.”

“They (national and local government units) should be able to come up with a more organized distribution system that follows physical distancing and other health and quarantine protocols for the protection of the beneficiaries themselves, their families, government personnel distributing the funds and the public in general,” Castelo stressed.

Concerned officials should have already learned a lesson from the delivery of the April funds “in a less than orderly fashion,” she added.

The House of Representatives earlier notified agencies and local government units tasked to farm out cash aid to the most vulnerable sectors that it would investigate complaints of non-receipt of the dole-outs.

“We did our job in expeditiously passing the Bayanihan Law and President Duterte did his job in promptly downloading the necessary funds. But problems were encountered in the implementation of the financial aid program,” noted Anakalusugan party-list Rep. Mike Defensor.

Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano has authorized the conduct of the inquiry “at the right time,” which was supported by Majority Leader Martin Romualdez, Deputy Speaker Mikee Romero and several other House leaders and members.

The House leadership vowed to investigate the unwarranted delay in the distribution of the P200-billion financial aid to 18 million poor and near-poor household beneficiaries targeted under the Bayanihan to Heal as One Act that Congress passed last March 23.

Romero earlier revealed that based on government data, only 35 percent of vulnerable sectors of the total 18 million families received their share of SAP or an average of only three in 10 families.

Second tranche of SAP

Meanwhile, Interior Secretary Eduardo Año has tasked local government units to submit starting today the names of beneficiaries left out in the first tranche of SAP.

Año said he expects local executives to submit the names and details of qualified beneficiaries, not just the numbers who would be part of about five million households to be added in the second tranche.

The deadline for distribution of the first tranche of the national government emergency cash subsidy was on May 10 but many LGUs have not finished the disbursment.

The Department of the Interior and local Government has ordered LGUs to post the names of beneficiaries in their barangays to ensure transparency in the identification of qualified residents in the SAP. Delon Porcalla, Romina Cabrera