The listing of the beneficiaries of the Social Amelioration Program has been disorganized that even the agency tasked to do the listing, the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), acknowledged the problem.
Because of the problem, last week, the DSWD even came out with a mechanism for those who felt aggrieved to file their complaint. By the way, the agency has placed on a website the list of the beneficiaries of the program.
In the press statement, the regional office of the agency admitted that it has received complaints from those who claimed they were not included in the list of supposed recipients.
“With the increasing issues and concerns of families who believe that they are eligible but have been excluded from the list of beneficiaries” of the program, the agency said it encouraged those who have grievances as well as those who detected anomalies to formalize their complaints.
Among the complaints so far was that those who received the assistance included the affluent, village officials and even the dead.
Of course, the dead usually become part of political exercises, like they were made to vote on elections, but the pandemic could never be considered a political exercise, so the obvious reason their names appeared on the list of beneficiaries was that some have milked the bones of the ghosts.
But beyond the complaints, the agency and other functionaries tasked to implement government programs need to check the mechanisms and find ways to correct them.
After all, it is within their responsibility to ensure that any program is implemented to fulfill the goal of helping those who need the help especially in dire situations like this. Not doing so is an injustice.
