• GILBERT P. BAYORAN
Negros Occidental Liga ng mga Barangay president Richard Julius Sablan urged barangay officials who included their own children or relatives in the list of beneficiaries of the presidential scholarship program to return the P20,000 educational assistance.
The Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) is now investigating complaints involving barangays in Bago City, Cauayan and Moises Padilla over the inclusion of children or relatives of barangay officials as beneficiaries.
Sablan made the appeal amid calls for greater transparency and accountability in the selection of beneficiaries to ensure that the scholarship assistance reaches students who are most in need.
“If there are complaints, maybe they should return the P20,000,” Sablan said.
He confirmed that a barangay captain in Bago City came forward, and returned the P20,000 received by her child.
Sablan said the incident should serve as a precedent for other barangay officials facing similar circumstances to voluntarily replace the names of their children or relatives to prevent complaints and questions over the selection process.
Governor Eugenio Jose Lacson said barangay captains were given the mandate to decide how the P200,000 allocation for each barangay would be used, with P100,000 intended for educational assistance and the remaining P100,000 for barangay projects.
Under the Bawat Barangay Makikinabang Program, Malacañang has allocated P200,000 to each of the over 42,000 barangays nationwide.
Funded through the Socio-Civic Projects Fund, the budget splits evenly, with P100,000 for college scholarships or P20,000 each for five student scholars and P100,000 for approved community or safety projects.
Sablan said the names of scholarship beneficiaries had already been submitted by barangay chairpersons as early as February while the guidelines governing the selection were issued by the DILG only later.
While he acknowledged that some barangays may have encountered difficulties in finding applicants because some residents were initially hesitant to participate in the program, Sablan said this should not be a reason for barangay officials to fill vacancies in the beneficiary list with their own family members.
DILG-Negros Occidental provincial director Teodora Sumagaysay said barangay officials must adopt an objective prioritization and evaluation process and avoid conflict of interest, nepotism, and favoritism in selecting beneficiaries. | GPB
