The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) announced Sunday persons with disabilities (PWDs) and senior citizens could send authorized representatives to get their second wave of Social Amelioration Program or SAP 2.
“DSWD is implementing manual and digital distribution methods through financial service providers (FSPs) and cash cards for the second tranche of SAP. However, since qualified beneficiaries may still need to line up in payout centers to cash out their subsidies, DSWD appealed to seniors and PWDs to send younger and healthier members of their families as their authorized representatives to claim or withdraw their grants,” it said in a statement.
The agency issued the same advisory in May after receiving reports that some senior citizens died while in line to receive their financial assistance.
Aside from representatives, DSWD also delivers the social pension and P100,000 cash gifts to senior citizens and centenarians.
“The Department is also conducting house-to-house delivery of cash aid under the Social Pension for Indigent Senior Citizens and the Centenarian Act,” it said.
“The Department continues to put premium on the safety and welfare of the older persons and PWDs especially during this ongoing global health crisis,” it added.
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DSWD explains reduction of eligible SAP 2 beneficiaries
DWSD also explained the reasons why the number of qualified SAP 2 beneficiaries were reduced, which is now 14,117,957 individuals.
The agency said one of the reasons their stringent validation and deduplication process to ensure that only low-income families would receive the government’s financial assistance. They also filtered out those who are already getting aid from other government agencies.
According to Sun Star, “As of August 1, a total of 842,014 families received duplicate assistance after they were cross-matched with databases of the DSWD’s Emergency Subsidy Program and Pantawid Pamillyang Pilipino Program (4Ps), as well as with the Department of Agriculture’s Financial Subsidy to Rice Farmers (DA-FSRF), Department of Labor and Employment’s Covid-19 Adjustment Measures Program (DOLE-Camp), and the Department of Finance-Social Security System’s Small Business Wage Subsidy Program (DOF-SSS-SBWSP).”
DSWD also discovered around 200,000 beneficiaries that are not qualified for the SAP 2.