Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña said he hoped that the postponement of the release of cash incentives to beneficiaries under the government’s Sustainable Livelihood Program will not be permanent.
“Otherwise, it’s unfair. It’s OK to postpone it,” Osmeña said in Tuesday’s press conference.
The mayor said he received information from the Department of Social Welfare and Development’s (DSWD) regional office to postpone the release of SLP cash as per recommendation by Cebu City Vice Mayor Edgar Labella to avoid any undue advantage especially with the barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) elections drawing near.
But the DSWD-7, in a press statement issued yesterday, did not confirm or deny these reports.
The DSWD-7 also assured that there’s no politics involved in their agency’s decision to include members of Cebu City’s urban poor in the SLP which was requested by Osmeña.
“SLP grants are not automatically given to those referred by local officials. During program orientations, the Field Office has always emphasized that referrals and applications for SLP and other DSWD programs are subject to assessment and validation in accordance with existing guidelines,” the agency said on their statement.
They also clarified that the total amount of money allocated to SLP beneficiaries in Cebu City did not reach to P600 million, contrary to reports.
“For the record, as of the first quarter of 2018, DSWD FO VII only released a total of P2.3 million to SLP beneficiaries in Cebu City,” DSWD said.