First Kap to Post SAP Recipients

PRESSURED OTHER VILLAGE CHIEFS TO EMULATE HIM

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

M’LANG, Cotabato – The village chief in this landlocked town seemed to pressure other barangay chairmen after he posted at public places the recipients of the monetary assistance given by the government to the people.

Barangay Chairman Noah Zabel said his actuation as the first village chief to post at the wall of the barangay hall the names of each of the beneficiaries of the P5,000 from the Department of Social Welfare & Development showed that there was no anomaly in the selection of the recipients.

The 354 beneficiary-households out of the 1,091households hailed from the poorest of the poor in the 5,700 populated village perched near the great Liguasan Marsh. 

SWANKY. The three million pesos swanky two-storey’s Dugong Barangay Hall in M’lang Cotabato (above photo). Other edifices (other photos) of the local government unit of Dugong.

He cited that the financial figure of the recipients did not include those members of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program popularly known as 4Ps who earlier received through their automatic teller machine (ATM) cards their Social Amelioration Program (SAP) from the national government.

“Ang purpose ko dito sabi ko sa pag post sa mga beneficiaries sino gusto mag comment e-report ninyo sa akin kung sino dito ang disqualified para mapag aralan natin kung papaano natin iyon ang purpose ko doon,” he stressed in Filipino.

The P5,000 came from the government as mitigation after President Rodrigo Duterte put Luzon into a virtual lock down

Elective leaders in the Visaya and Mindanao regions emulated the fiat of the president when he imposed it on March 16 and extended it to end on April 30 this year.

Despite the non-inclusion of the 4Ps members in the 375 payees who received the sum at the village gymnasium, Zabel said he wished that all the members of the marginalized sectors in his agricultural village availed the financial assistance from the government.

“Ang sa akin sana lahat ng tao maka avail. Iyon mga nanga-nga-ilangan talaga”.

 

Author with Barangay Chairman Noah Zabel (left photo). Author with Council Members Asma Sabangan (above photo and his high school classmate) and Ali Tricky Kanapia.

According to the law, the subsidy shall be computed based on the prevailing regional minimum wage rates taking into consideration the subsidy given under the DSWD’ s conditional cash transfer (CCT) Program and the rice subsidy program.

It was P8,000 in the National Capital Region, P6,500 in Region 3,  to P5,000 in Region 12 and the CARAGA Region.

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