Funds lack mar SAP in BARMM 

COTABATO CITY - Lack of resources marred the distribution of the Special Amelioration Program (SAP) funds to beneficiaries in some parts of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), even fanning early political tirades on incumbent local officials.

Mayor Victor Samama of Datu Piang, Maguindanao said fake accounts on social media were made a virtual platform by critics to draw early political mudslinging, accusing local officials of shortchanging their people of the SAP funds.

On Monday, Basilan Governor Jim Hataman Salliman told BARMM’s Ministry of the Interior and Local Government (MILG) that his office had been flooded with complaints, like only a few families became SAP recipients in some barangays in Lamitan City.  

The Bangsamoro government has said it fell short with its SAP funds for the region’s around 2.4 million poor, as the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) in Manila had directed its regional counterpart agency to revert unused social services funds to Manila.

Lawyer Naguib Sinarimbo, interior minister and spokesman for BARMM Chief Minister Ahod Balawag Murad Ebrahim, said the regional government’s Ministry of Social Services and Development (MSSD) has been tasked to implement the grant of SAP assistance to the region’s indigents.

The office of lawyer Raissa Jajurie, BARMM MSSD minister, had earlier asked the DSWD national to allow local augmentation of the nationally-granted SAP fund with unused financial resources earlier allotted for Programang Pantawid Pampamilya at Pangkabuhayan or 4Ps program. Thousands have been delisted from the religion's 4Ps program for various reasons in subsequent validation.

Sinarimbo said Jajurie had secured Manila approval for this, but the following day, her office received order to revert the same fund to DSWD national in view of the national emergency brought about by the corona virus disease (CoVid19) pandemic.

According to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) 63 percent of BARMM’s 3,781,387 population or 2,382,273.81 people were poor as of 2015 when it was yet ARMM.

At 5,000 each, the region needed some P 11.9 billion in SAP fund for its indigents. But sources said BARMM only received P 2 billion which explains Jajure’s request to DSWD to allow augmentation of its SAP fund.

BARMM had to certify for Datu Piang Councilor Harristhang Kasim that he had neither requested nor received assistance from the regional government. This was after he was accused on social media of receiving and mismanaging 500 bags of rice allocation for the town’s residents.

Sinarimbo told local officials complaining to him that the funds committed by BARMM to its local government units “fell short of the original target,” owing to a later directive by DSWD national to revert the fund earlier agreed to augment the region’s SAP funds.

A DSWD official said the normal procedure was to pass official request to the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) for the “realignment of an unused fund to serve a similar purpose.” 

But the official, who spoke on condition that she be not named for lack of authority to speak for DBM, said under the current “extraordinary situation,” the legislated emergency powers allow the President to transfer funds where allocation was deemed needed the most. Nash B. Maulana