In ARMM, money for poor goes to execs’ pockets

Beneficiaries of the government’s cash transfer program line up to withdraw their subsidies from a bank in Kidapawan City. —GEONARRI SOLMERANO / CONTRIBUTOR

JOLO, SULU—An official of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) has uncovered a scheme in which barangay and town officials in the five provinces in the region have been pocketing the money intended for the beneficiaries of the government’s Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps).

Lawyer Laisa Alamia, newly installed social welfare and development secretary of the
ARMM, said her office had been swarmed with complaints, coursed through a government hotline and from beneficiaries themselves, about some officials and government employees in the region collecting the money that 4Ps beneficiaries were supposed to receive.

ATM withdrawal

“Imagine, a mother was supposed to get P1,400 cash from 4Ps, but some unscrupulous government employees—teachers, social workers—withdraw the money from their ATM (automated teller machine accounts) and hand over to them just P500. They pocket the rest of the subsidy,” Alamia told the Inquirer.

She said these government employees were keeping the ATM cards of beneficiaries after these were pawned to them.

Among the complaints that Alamia received involved some politicians forcing beneficiaries to pawn their cards or to pay some fees before they could withdraw their money.

Alamia said she had monitored the problem in the provinces of Maguindanao, Sulu, Basilan, Tawi-Tawi and Lanao del Sur.

“In all the five provinces of the ARMM, we get various complaints about 4Ps benefits being taken by non-4Ps beneficiaries,” she said.

“There were also cases of beneficiaries (who are not poor and employed),” she added.

Alamia said while she had yet to get details of the complaints, her initial information showed that “70 to 80 percent” of people involved in the scheme were village chiefs and some municipal employees.

‘Ghost’ students

She said some school principals also got a cut when they issued certificates of attendance needed for the release of the 4Ps subsidy to beneficiaries.

Alamia was alarmed that some of the students that these school officials had certified did not exist.

“We conducted actual checking of attendance in a particular school but discovered some of the children on the list were ghost beneficiaries,” Alamia said.

“Teachers, principals, supervisors are in cahoots with the municipal (4Ps coordinators),” she added.

Fear

She said some barangay officials also tapped relatives to collect the beneficiaries’ cash cards and withdraw money .

“So it’s what you see at ATMs, one person carrying so many ATM cards, withdrawing money,” she said.

But most of those who fell victims of the unscrupulous practice did not file formal complaints.

“They don’t even want to come out to identify the persons behind the irregularities for fear that these people will get back at them, or their names will be removed from the list of beneficiaries,” Alamia said.

But she vowed the ARMM would arrest erring officials and government employees caught in the act during payout time.

Warning

“No arrest will happen today. But on the next payout to 4Ps beneficiaries, you will not just be terminated from [government] service, you will also be arrested once [we catch you committing this illegal] act,” Alamia warned Department of Social Welfare and Development workers during Wednesday’s assembly attended by 19 mayors, 410 village chiefs and other government employees.

“In the next payout, we will be on the ground in coordination with the security sector to protect the beneficiaries,” she said.

ARMM has 415,389 households registered with 4Ps. Maguindanao’s indigent families (160,972 households) make up 38.75 percent of beneficiaries, followed by Sulu (93,734), Lanao del Sur (93,051), Tawi-Tawi (36,139) and Basilan (31,439).