ILOILO – Why were barangay officials excluded from the national government’s Social Amelioration Program (SAP) for people economically displaced by the ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) health crisis?
Across the country, each SAP beneficiary gets P6,000 cash assistance from the government.
A “seeming irregularity” was how Vice Gov. Christine Garin described the exclusion of barangay officials from the program.
Item VI-B (a) of the Department of Social Welfare and Development’s Memorandum Circular No. 09, Series of 2020 classified barangay officials as elected or appointed government officials, thus not eligible for SAP.
Garin, however, pointed out that barangay officials receive honorarium only, and not much.
“Under the Local Government Code, the minimum honorarium of barangay officials is P1,000 per month for punong barangay and P600 per month for barangay kagawad, barangay secretary and treasurer,” she lamented.
Also, she added, under Local Budget Circular No. 63 dated Oct. 22, 1996, honorarium rates of barangay officials may be adjusted or modified, subject to the availability of funds and the general limitation on personal services of local government units.
So, if the barangay belongs to a fourth-class municipality, barangay officials will receive meager honorarium, she said.
Garin cited as example the municipality of Guimbal, a 4th-class municipality; barangay captains receive an average of P5,000 per month honoraria, and P3,500 on average for barangay kagawad, secretary and treasurers.
In this time of public health emergency, barangay officials have additional workload as frontliners, added Garin.
“Is it fair for the barangay officials tasked to assist in distributing the SAP to indigent members of the community, giving them P6,000 each month for two months, without them receiving any? They work around the clock to maintain peace and order, deliver food assistance to their constituents, enforce the enhanced community quarantine, while risking their lives,” said Garin./PN
