President Rodrigo Duterte instructed Budget Secretary Wendel Avisado to come up with ways to expand the coverage of the second tranche of emergency subsidies from the national government. This is to ensure that all 23 million poor families will receive the second wave of cash assistance from the Social Amelioration Program (SAP), Malacañang said on Friday. The original number of beneficiaries is 18 million.
Malacañang on Thursday said only 13 million out of 23 million poor families will receive the second tranche of financial assistance due to limited funds of the government. To address this, Duterte has ordered the DBM to realign funds to augment the insufficiency of funds.
“The President has ordered DBM Secretary to find ways and means to give Social Amelioration to everyone in the second tranche,” Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said. The spokesperson also hinted that the President might tap the Congress to ask for an additional PHP 50 billion budget for the SAP implementation in the event that DBM fails to realign budget for it.
Second tranche of payouts can be released only when local government units (LGUs) have submitted liquidation reports for the first tranche.
