Under a Memorandum of Agreement executed with the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), the municipal local government unit has seven (7) days within which to distribute the emergency subsidy to low-income households under the Social Amelioration Program (SAP).
Municipal councils met in special sessions last week to authorize their local chief executives to enter into the MOA as partners of the national government agencies in the expeditious delivery of the assistance.
“The fund transfer to LGU is identified as one of the best schemes to fast track the payout of Assistance to Individuals in Crisis Situations (AICS) and Social Pension (SocPen) to the beneficiaries, and shall be an interim solution for the current emergency or crisis situation due to COVID-19,” the agreement states.
It noted that the DSWD is constrained to observe stringent social distancing measures that prohibit the conduct of assemblies or mass gatherings like payouts to the most affected families or households of the areas under community quarantine, especially senior citizens, pregnant and lactating women, solo parents, distressed overseas Filipinos, persons with disability, indigenous peoples, underprivileged and homeless families, and informal economy workers.
Under the agreement, beneficiaries shall be profiled through the use of a Social Amelioration Card (SAC), which will be required only during the distribution and receipt of the emergency subsidy to each family.
Barangay personnel are supposed to conduct a house-to-house distribution of the bar-coded and pre-numbered SAC form, which will be manually filled up by the head of the family.
In case of multiple families in a single household, each head of the family shall execute their own SAC form for their family which must have at least one (1) member belonging to the vulnerable or disadvantaged sector.
Within 48 hours after the signing of the MOA, the SAC forms, as well as other documentary requirements, will be submitted by the barangay to the Municipal Social Welfare and Development Office (MSWDO), which will encode the data and submit the same to the DSWD Central Office.
It will be the municipality which will determine the most efficient arrangement with each beneficiary on how the assistance shall be delivered, taking into consideration the strict home quarantine protocol, social distancing or guidelines imposed by the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) on COVID-19, provided that the LGU shall ensure that the assistance is actually received by the beneficiaries.
During the conduct of the payout, the LGU shall ensure that beneficiaries shall sign a payroll. In addition, it must secure a photocopy of the beneficiary’s identification card with specimen signatures and take a photo of the beneficiary during the actual receipt of the assistance for AICS or SocPen.
The SAP subsidy in the Bicol region will be a maximum of P5,000 each poor family per month for two months, for basic food, medicine and toiletries.
Aside from the emergency cash subsidy, the other forms of assistance are Food and Non-Food Items Distribution; Assistance to Individuals In Crisis Situation; Livelihood Assistance Grants; COVID-19 Adjustment Measures Program; TUPAD #BKBK; COVID-19 P3 ERF; Moratorium on Loan Payments of Small Business Corporation Borrowers; Price Freeze; Cash Assistance for Rice Farmers; Survival and Recovery Assistance for Marginalized Small Farmers and Fishermen; Recovery Package for Micro and Small Enterprises Engaged in Agriculture and Fish Production and Other Supply Chains Activities in Accordance with the Agripreneurship Development Fund/Program of the ACPC; Expanded and Enhanced Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program; and Livelihood Seeding Program/Negosyo Serbisyo sa Barangay.