Pasig Mayor Vico Sotto has promised that the local government unit will work to aid families who will not be covered by the national government’s Social Amelioration Program (SAP). The program, originally intended to benefit families in need, was limited in effectivity by its “rigid quota system.”
Pasig City initially requested enough funding for 206,000 families from the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD). They were granted funds for only 93,000 families — less than half of what they need.
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The disparity in aid given and aid requested is due to the DSWD and the Department of Finance (DOF) basing the SAP beneficiary list on the 2015 census.
“This is still a big help,” Pasig Mayor Vico Sotto said in a live broadcast on his Facebook page on Sunday. “But we are going to have some problems if only 93,000 families receive aid.”
As such, Vico announced that they would be rolling out the Pasig Supplemental SAP (PSSAP), which aims to take care of at least 113,000 families left out of the DSWD’s list.
“All families in need who are not on the DSWD list will be covered by the local government,” Sotto said. “Over the holidays, we studied the budget and cash position of the city so we know how much we can distribute.”
However, Vico admitted that the city does not have enough funds to match the Php 16,000 per family provided by the SAP. The amount is meant to be distributed over the course of 2 months. Pasig will most likely only be able to provide Php 8,000 per family.
Vico said on his Facebook post that the current list Pasig holds is based on the data of their Pamaskong Handog. Families not included in that list may still apply to be covered by the PSSAP as long as they have proof of residence.
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