Solon asks: Over 2,000 delisted CCT beneficiaries got money?

MANILA, Philippines - The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) has yet to confirm if it paid some 2,616 delisted Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) Program beneficiaries in 2012 before their names were removed from the agency’s database.

During the budget deliberations on the DSWD’s proposed P108.97 billion budget for 2015 on Tuesday night, Bayan Muna partylist Rep. Carlos Isagani Zarate inquired about the supposed double entries in the list of CCT beneficiaries.

The 2,616 beneficiaries were earlier delisted because of the double entry of their names in the agency’s database.

“May possibility na tumanggap din (ang mga) ito ng pondo mula sa CCT kaya ayon sa COA (Commission on Audit) may problema ito. Paano nagkaganun na sa mabusising pagtatala ng DSWD ay nagkaroon ng double entries sa payroll?” Zarate said duringthe hearing.

Compostela Valley Rep. Maria Carmen Zamora, who sponsored the DSWD’s funding requirement in her capacity as vice chairperson of the House Committee on Appropriations. assured that the DSWD would verify the matter and respond to Zarate’s query.

“The DSWD would like to double check [that] so it can give an exact answer," she said.

Zamora said that the double entries could have been plainly caused by erroneous coding or that a beneficiary’s name was listed twice with a different spelling.

Citing the COA 2013 report, Zarate said the double entries in 2012 amounted to P17.426 million.

“Ang katumbas nito ay P17.426 million na naipalabas [na pondo], at inaamin ninyo ito ngayon. To correct this, you had to do some delisting. Ang tanong po natin, saan nagpunta itong P17.426 million?” he said.

Zamora said the DSWD had already looked into the matter.

“And for the record, they found out that of these 6,078 alleged duplicate beneficiaries, 3,462 or 43 percent are active, and the remaining 2,616 were subjected to validation as they were the ones who, in this case, were allegedly duplicated in the database," she said.

While there were double entries, she said that no overpayments were made by the DSWD.

“There was no overpayment because under the system of Land Bank. The Land Bank would only pay those (whose names) were confirmed by the department...There could have been double entries because of the erroneous entry of names. But under the system of disbursing, the system in Land Bank could detect if there are double names in the payroll,” Zamora said

Zarate said the COA report of 2013 cited the problem of double entry of names of CCT beneficiaries that happened in 2012.

“The COA said that from January to August 2012, there were duplication problems which resulted in the overpayment of P3.1 million to P5.6 million,” he said.

The DSWD has the fifth biggest proposed budget among government agencies. It has earmarked the biggest portion of its budget for next year for its CCT program with P64.7 billion, which is P2.1 billion more than this year’s P62.6 billion.