Research group IBON said that the Duterte government should correct the huge shortfall of the Social Amelioration Program (SAP) especially amid a continuously increasing number of COVID-19 cases. Aside from getting the stingy first tranche of emergency subsidies, 9 million of the 18 million target recipients and 1.5 million more \u201cwait-listed\u201d beneficiaries will no longer get the second tranche. This is as the government limits distribution to residents in enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) and modified ECQ (MECQ) areas. Yet, the country reaches a record of 36,438 cases as of June 29.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to the recently expired Bayanihan<\/em> law, the Philippine government was supposed to provide\nemergency subsidies to low-income families and vulnerable sectors whose jobs\nand incomes were disrupted by the lockdown. Support amounting to\nPhp5,000-8,000, depending on regional minimum wage rates, was to be given to\nsome 18 million poor households for two months. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The first month-tranche came in the duration of three months,\nmaking the already stingy aid even much delayed. The second month-tranche, on\nthe other hand, according to an inter-agency joint memorandum, will be\ndistributed now only to beneficiaries in the ECQ and MECQ areas. This reduces\nthe original 17.7 million target beneficiaries to just 8.6 million households\nin the following areas: Central Luzon except Aurora, the National Capital\nRegion (NCR), Calabarzon, Benguet, Pangasinan, Iloilo, Cebu province, Bacolod\nCity, Davao City, Albay province, and Zamboanga City. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This leaves 9.1 million of the original target SAP beneficiaries\naffected by the three-month lockdown to make do with the meager first tranche,\nsaid IBON. This is even if economic activity cannot fully resume in now general\ncommunity quarantine (GCQ) and modified GCQ areas. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Considering that Php98.3 billion has been distributed to 17.5\nmillion households as of June 27, IBON computes that the first tranche averages\nout to Php5,617 per family. Without the second tranche supposedly for the second\nmonth of lockdown, the subsidy amounts to just Php53 per family or Php12 per\nperson per day for the past 106 days since the COVID-19 lockdown started. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Even those who will receive the second tranche will still end up\nstretching a small amount over three months of lockdown, IBON said. Some\nPhp6.79 billion in second tranche aid has already been distributed to 1.3\nmillion recipients, or an average of Php5,047 per family. Combining both\ntranches, these 1.3 million families each got only a total of Php10,664. This\namounts to Php101 per family or Php23 per family member for each of the 106\nlockdown days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n IBON also noted that 5.28 million low-income households even continue to wait for the first tranche of SAP. This figure includes the remaining 278,206 beneficiaries out of the target 17.7 million according to Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) data as of June 27. The rest are the families declared by the DSWD in mid-May as also eligible to receive aid but have not received any. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet, the government retracted and said that only 3.5 million of the wait-listed beneficiaries in MECQ and ECQ areas as of end-May are to get two tranches of emergency subsidy. This means that the remaining 1.5 million in GCQ and modified GCQ areas are getting only one tranche.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The country does not seem to be winning the war against COVID-19, but the government has remained indifferent to the impact of the pandemic on the millions of poor families, said IBON. The Duterte administration has continued penny-pinching even as people\u2019s livelihoods and incomes are already irrecoverable and public health is at risk. People\u2019s socioeconomic welfare along with an efficient health response are the urgent matters that the Duterte government should be focusing on instead of staying apathetic to the mounting health and economic crisis, IBON said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This article was originally published on June 30, 2020. It was updated on July 1, 2020 to reflect corrections in the first and eighth paragraphs regarding the recipients of two tranches of emergency subsidies (3.5 million in ECQ and MECQ areas) and of only one tranche of emergency subsidies (1.5 million in GCQ\/ MGCQ areas as of end-May) among wait-listed beneficiaries. This is according to a May 22, 2020 memorandum from the Office of the Executive Secretary to the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF).<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Duterte government should correct the huge shortfall of the Social Amelioration Program (SAP) especially amid a continuously increasing number of COVID-19 cases. About 9 million out of the target 18 million poor households received only one tranche of emergency aid, or just Php53 per day over 106 days of COVID-19 lockdown. <\/p>","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":9880,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2048,14],"tags":[2300,2199,2218,347,2250,2249],"class_list":["post-9878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-banner","category-news","tag-bayanihan-heal-as-one-law","tag-covid-19","tag-covid-19-response","tag-duterte-administration","tag-emergency-subsidy","tag-social-amelioration-program","wpautop"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-23 18:26:34","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9878"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9878\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9895,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9878\/revisions\/9895"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}