CONGRESSMEN on Wednesday asked senators to reconsider the move to cut P39 billion in funding for a Social Welfare department’s social aid program for next year, saying they should look at how indigent Filipinos benefited from it.
The Senate finance panel has recommended the deletion of the Ayuda sa Kapos Ang Kita Program’s (AKAP) funding under the Department of Social Welfare Department’s (DSWD) budget, as contained under the House-approved General Appropriations Bill, according to news reports.
The House has allotted P39 billion to the social safety net program, according to the chamber’s budget bill.
“Though we respect the recommendation of the Senate, nonetheless, we’d like to invite our friends in the Senate to just look at the results of what has been done in the past months as we have been implementing the [program],” Deputy Majority Leader and Party-list Rep. Jude A. Acidre said in a media briefing in mixed English and Filipino.
“I hope that our senators will go beyond the noise of the issue, but rather look at the program on its own merits,” he added.
AKAP is a social aid program designed to prevent “near poor” Filipinos from “spiraling down below the poverty line,” DSWD Secretary Rexlon T. Gatchalian said in a statement in February. — Kenneth Christiane L. Basilio
