By Pearl Gumapos
The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), in a statement released on Sunday (July 4), said it is willing to face any investigating body related to Senator Manny Pacquio’s allegations that there are funds missing from the agency’s Social Amelioration Program (SAP).
The DSWD also said it is willing and ready to present the necessary evidence as well as other relevant documents to prove its innocence.
“Handa ang aming departamento na harapin ang anumang imbestigasyon, at isumite ang mga kinakailangan na dokumento upang bigyang linaw ang alegasyon ni Senator Manny Pacquiao,” DSWD Secretary Rolando Bautista said.
“Lahat ng pondong ibinigay sa financial service providers ay accounted for at walang nawawalang pondo. Ang lahat ng ayuda na ipinamahagi ay sinuportahan ng liquidation reports na maaaring ibahagi kung kinakailangan,” he added.
The agency said regular financial reports are submitted to oversight agencies and to the Office of the President regarding SAP, which has a budget of P199.975 billion under the Bayanihan to Heal as One Act.
“In fact, the agency has attended several Congressional hearings relative to the SAP implementation and has presented all the necessary reports for transparency,” the DSWD statement read.
The senator had been challenged by the President to identify the government agencies that Pacquiao claimed are corrupt. Pacquiao named DSWD as among those with irregularities in a media briefing on Saturday (July 3).
In a live streamed announcement on Saturday, Pacquiao said it was questionable how Starpay, one of DSWD’s financial service providers (FSPs), only had 500,000 downloads but SAP was disbursed to 1.8 million beneficiaries.
“All funds provided to FSPs are accounted for and that there are no missing funds. All aid distributed is supported by liquidation reports that can be shared, if necessary,” DSWD said.
“The agency ensures that the processes adopted by FSPs on payouts are in accordance with Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas-approved processes and existing government accounting rules and procedures,” the DSWD added.
The first portion of SAP was handled by the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) while the next one was managed by the DSWD through FSPs.
The FSPs are GCash, Paymaya, Robinsons Bank, Starpay, and Unionbank, identified through the technical assistance of the BSP which has the expertise on digitization as well as the enabling policies and regulatory environment for financial inclusion and digital payments.
BSP gave primary consideration to the presence of payout partners to ensure ease and ability to cash out by beneficiaries, balanced with other factors such as the presence of business model institutions, historical experience in commercial rollout, and type of cashout points that may contribute to ensuring liquidity or availability of cash.
In April 2021, the DSWD terminated the services of the FSPs to conduct manual payouts for the unserved second tranche beneficiaries.
“The FSPs, including Starpay, liquidated the budget that they received and refunded the amount for the unserved beneficiaries to the DSWD,” the DSWD said.
In a statement released on July 5, Starpay said “Senator Manny Pacquiao’s statement during his press conference that our current capitalization is P62,000 is incorrect, while the correct and accurate figures are easily verifiable with the Securities and Exchange Commission.”
“Furthermore, we have already liquidated the funds given to us and have refunded the amount for the unserved beneficiaries through several checks that were issued to the DSWD’s Land Bank account totaling to P8.239 billion, as also mentioned by DSWD in their 4th of July release,” Starpay added.
With regard to the supposed large number of complaints, Starpay said 1,615 complaints, representing 0.03% of the total served number of beneficiaries, have been resolved.
At present, over 17 million low-income families were recorded to have received their first tranche of SAP with more than P98 billion amount disbursed.
For the second tranche, as of July 2, 2021, 14.88 million families received cash assistance with over P89.8 billion disbursed.
Some payout activities are ongoing and will be completed by the end of this month.
“We have not received any invitation for hearings on the alleged missing fund in SAP or if there will be an investigation. Nevertheless, the DSWD welcomes any investigation to check the transparency of the SAP service,” DSWD Spokesperson Irene Dumlao told the Philippine News Agency on Sunday. – jlo