The city government has assigned 200 of its employees to screen, validate, and verify the beneficiaries of the Social Amelioration Program (SAP) to assure that only qualified heads of families will receive them.
Mayor Benjamin Magalong said the target is to finish validation of an estimated 45,000 families in 10 days.
The mayor said the City Social Welfare and Development Office started with the printing of the SAP cards and immediately released the same so that nobody can claim they have been issued the card previously.
He said the forms are coded and cannot be photocopied.
Magalong said the CSWDO has devised a system to facilitate release of the P5,500 cash aid or P11,000 for April and May.
As per the process flow, barangays will initially identify and screen the beneficiaries with the use of family profiling forms. This list will be submitted to the CSWDO for validation through house-to-house interviews.
The city will deploy validation teams to speed up the process. Qualified beneficiaries will be issued a coded social amelioration card.
After validation, pay-out will be done in the barangays.
“Do not expect that all recipients will receive it at the same time. We cannot avoid that some barangays will get their assistance ahead of the others,” he said.
Members of the 4Ps will be automatically included and their cash aid will be deposited in their accounts. Grantees of the Tulong Panghanapbuhay sa Ating Disadvantaged/Displaced Workers of the Department of Labor and Employment are not eligible for the SAP but will automatically receive an additional P2,000.
The mayor assured more validators will be added if needed to speed up release of the SAP assistance.
Presidential Communications Operations Office Presidential Communications Operations Office Assistant Secretary Ana Marie Banaag clarified 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 the emergency subsidy.
Government employees who are solo parents and retired senior citizens who are pensioners are excluded in the program.
Households that have members who are government employees and also have unemployed members are also not qualified.
Those qualified are poor families without income, family members are unemployed, indigent senior citizens, indigent persons with disability, and indigent solo parents.
The counting of recipient is per family household members and not per individual. – PNA and Aileen P. Refuerzo
