Red tape at DSWD seen delaying P200-b cash aid

MANILA, Philippines, April 2 ------ Red tape at the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) is obstructing the distribution of cash assistance to poor families in the grip of the national health emergency, Deputy Speaker Luis Raymund Villafuerte Jr. said on Wednesday. Villafuerte bewailed the “cumbersome set of rules” used by the DSWD in releasing emergency funds to local governments a week after Congress passed the Bayanihan to Heal as One Act to deal with new coronavirus disease (COVID-19).

Under the law, P200 billion has been set aside as emergency assistance fund for poor families. They will receive a monthly cash subsidy of P8,000 in Metro Manila, and from P5,000 to P6,500 in lower-wage regions over a two-month period. About 18 million households that have lost their means of livelihood following the “enhanced community quarantine” are supposed to benefit from the emergency funds, Villafuerte said.

“The DSWD leadership appears bereft of any sense of urgency at this time when millions of poor and low-income Filipino families have been struggling to survive two weeks into the period of personal movement restrictions meant to slow the spread of COVID-19,” he said. Villafuerte said that at the rate the DSWD “is taking its own sweet time … it may probably take a month before the target beneficiaries are finally able to get the first tranche” of their subsidy.

“The last thing that these poor and low-income families need at this time when the economy is at a standstill is DSWD-style red tape,” he added. “Every single day of delay means another day of hunger for many of these target households.” Villafuerte blasted the “intricate yet extraneous and avoidable requirements” imposed by the DSWD at three different stages of the emergency subsidy program (ESP): in the release of funds to local governments, identification of beneficiaries and actual transfer in the barangay. He said the DSWD did not release the forms needed by all local governments to enter into memorandums of agreement (MOAs) with the department as soon as President Duterte signed the Bayanihan Act on March 24. The MOAs are intended to facilitate the release of the funds to the local governments.

As a result not a single local government has a MOA with the DSWD, Villafuerte said. The DSWD is also requiring beneficiaries to first be certified and endorsed by the barangay chair and then validated by the municipal or city social welfare office before any amount is to be given to them. This requirement “creates an unnecessary bureaucratic layer that is vulnerable to politicking and corruption,” Villafuerte said. In addition, the DSWD has required that the social amelioration cards (SACs) be barcoded instead of simply requiring the local governments to submit standard forms identifying each beneficiary. “What happens to barangays without available barcode encoders or those without barcode devices?” Villafuerte said.

Source: inquirer.net