Poor households in GCQ should be included in SAP’s next release — CDO solon

CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY – Rep. Rufus Rodriguez has asked the Duterte administration to include the poor households in provinces under the general community quarantine (GCQ) in the next tranche of the government’s Social Amelioration Program (SAP) subsidy.

Rodriguez made the appeal after Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea issued a memorandum on Friday limiting the second installment of SAP to 12 million families in enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) and modified ECQ areas to include 5 million households living in poverty that did not receive the financial aid.

“I am asking ES (Executive Secretary) Medialdea to reconsider his decision and include the low income households in the GCQ areas for the SAP’s second tranche this month,” he said.

Rodriguez said Republic Act 11469 or the Bayanihan to Heal As One law specifically provided that 18 million low-income families in the country would receive SAP aid ranging from P5,000 to P8,000 for the two month-period that covered April and May.

Since Congress has done its part by passing RA 11469, thus giving President Duterte the power to realign the 2020 national budget to generate the funds needed for the SAP implementation, President Duterte and the Executive branch no longer need to “go back to Congress” to seek additional funds for SAP.

Rodriguez said that if the second tranche of the SAP would be limited to ECQ and modified ECQ areas, only poor families in Metro Manila, some Luzon provinces and two cities in Cebu would receive the cash assistance.

“The poor in most provinces, who, like those in Metro Manila, were also without jobs and income during the two-month ECQ, would be excluded. I think that is not the intention of the President and Congress,” he said.

This developed as the city recorded its 10th COVID-19 case, a 26-year old architecture student who arrived from Cebu on May 19 and tested positive for COVID-19.

The student, who was reviewing for the Architecture Licensure Exams, came home when the examination did not push through, Mayor Oscar Moreno said.

Dr. Joselito Retuya, an epidemiologist at the Northern Mindanao Medical Center (NMMC), said the student boarded a ship in Cebu City that also carried returning overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) and stranded persons from other areas of the country.  The ship docked at the Macabalan wharf on May 19.

“He is now at the city isolation unit and is undergoing treatment for his light cough,” Retuya said, referring to the patient from Cebu.

He said they were prepared to move the patient to NMMC, the COVID-19 referral medical facility in the city, should his health status worsen.

Of the 10 COVID-19 cases in Cagayan de Oro City, five have died, four have recovered and one (the architecture graduate) is still in isolation and undergoing treatment at NMMC.

In Cotabato City, a nine-month old boy has been tested positive for coronavirus disease (COVID-19), making him the 10th case here and the 24th confirmed COVID-19 case in the region, said Arjohn Gangoso, spokesperson of the Department of Health (DOH) in region 12.

Gangoso said the baby who was in a stable condition had been exposed to the 23rd COVID-19 patient in the region, an 11-year-old girl from Cotabato City who also was exposed to the 17th COVID-19 patient.