Baguio hastens fund distribution under amelioration program

BAGIUO CITY --  The city government will fast track the implementation of the Special Amelioration Program (SAP) for the city's 4,500 beneficiaries.

Mayor Benjamin Magalong said the Office of the City Social Welfare and Development under OCSWD Officer Betty Fangasan devised a system to facilitate the cash assistance program from the identification of the beneficiaries down to the release of the cash aid in the amount of P5,500 monthly for two months (April and May).

As per the process flow, barangays will initially identify and screen the beneficiaries with the use of family profiling forms.  

The raw list will be submitted to the OCSWDO for validation through house-to-house interviews. 

The city will deploy enough validation teams to speed up the process.  Qualified beneficiaries will be issued a social amelioration card (SAC).

After validation will be the processing of documents and payment and eventually, release of the same with pay-outs to be done in the barangays.

Magalong said around  48 percent or 45,000 families of the city's 93,000 total households stand to benefit from the SAP since the city was given an allocation of P247 million for the program by the national government.

The mayor said the city will do its best to fast track the release of the aid but because of the bulk of the beneficiaries, it can only be done in batches.

"So do not expect that all recipients will receive it at the same time.  We cannot avoid that some barangays will get theirs ahead of the others," he said.

Members of the 4Ps will automatically be included thus there is no need for them to undergo screening.  Their share will be deposited directly to their accounts.

Grantees of the TUPAD  or Tulong Panghanapbuhay sa Ating

Disadvantaged/Displaced Workers of the Dept. of Labor and Employment are no longer eligible for the SAP but will automatically receive an additional P2,000.

Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) Assistant Secretary Ana Marie Banaag issued the following clarifications on the SAP:

Who are not qualified:

*All Government Employees, Elected and Appointed Officials (Regular, Contractual, Job Order) in National, Regional, Provincial, City/Municipal and Barangay are not qualified to become recipients of Emergency Subsidy

* Government Employees who are Solo Parents, Retired Senior Citizens who are pensioners are EXCLUDED in the program

* If you have household members in the family who are government employees and there were unemployed members, still your family is not qualified.

Who are qualified:

* Poor families with no income, family members are unemployed, senior citizen is indigent, PWD indigent, solo parent is indigent.

*The counting of recipient is per family house/hold members and not per individual.