How Manila’s Educational Assistance Program dodged DSWD’s aid program’s mistakes

By Alexander Cardenas, Arien Malonzo, Jose Ycasiano

Photo from the official Facebook page of Dra. Honey Lacuna

Manila Mayor Honey Lacuna-Pangan stated that a huge part of the city’s funding would go to healthcare programs and social allowances, which include student subsidies. The Manila Educational Assistance Program was able to avoid the same mistakes the DSWD made with its cash aid program for students.

One of the issues with the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) is the unorganized distribution of cash aid in their educational assistance programs, but the city of Manila also had its own similar program, and it went smoothly compared to the former’s program.

The approved budget for the city of Manila amounts to P22 billion, according to Manila Mayor Honey Lacuna.

“Almost half of the executive budget will be allocated to social and health services,” Mayor Lacuna said.

Furthermore, students of state universities and public schools will receive social allowances through the Educational Assistance Program (EAP) spearheaded by the Manila Department of Social Welfare (MDSW).

The MDSW has a fund of approximately P1.7 billion, which holds about 7.7 percent of the total budget of Manila.

However, it is important to note that the cash assistance was only accommodated to the 983 public school students. The recipients were students from Districts 1, 3, 4, 5 and 6 with a total amount of P4.9 Million distributed among the students.

There were several factors that contributed to the unorganized distribution of cash aid by the DSWD.

The first factor in the educational assistance program of the DSWD is that their program is of a national scale, assisting students from elementary, tertiary and college levels, while Manila’s program only covered the city and only initially assisted public school students from elementary to tertiary levels, but in more recent news, the EAP expanded its help to students of state universities.

The second factor was the lack of verification within the DSWD’s program, which allowed scammers to take advantage of the cash aid program since cash aid receivers only need to bring a valid I.D., school I.D. or an enrollment form.

This was combated through online portals made by DSWD for each region in the country, which contained databases of Filipino students in the region who have and have not received their cash aid, but regardless, scam sites sharing false information on instructions for receiving cash aid still existed.

The MDSW verified the students who needed cash aid, depending on the district and the school, helping them distribute the cash aid by batches.

The third factor was the lack of communication between the agency and the cash aid receivers, which resulted in many disappointed Filipinos who were expecting to get their cash aid.

During their first day of cash aid distribution, back on August 20, last year, 5000 individuals flocked to the DSWD’s central office in Quezon City because of the lack of specific instructions given to the Filipinos.

The factor of lack of communication also extended toward the Department of Education and LGUs, which made it difficult for the agency to have a more targeted approach to cash aid distribution.

Because this was the first time that Filipinos swarmed their central offices, the agency was forced to communicate with LGUs to have them distribute the cash aid, with the oversight of DSWD itself.

In the case of the Manila EAP, communication between Mayor Lacuna and Vice Mayor Yul Servo Nieto was clear with MDSW’s Chief Re Fugoso and Councilor Nino dela Cruz, and they were able to distribute social workers and child development workers to assist them in distributing the educational assistance to students in Manila.

While the cases between the DSWD and MDSW was different due to the scope and their circumstances, having a systematic approach and keeping communication clear with other groups served as very important factors in attaining a goal that involves aid distribution.