The Senate has removed the P39-billion proposed allocation for the Ayuda para sa Kapos and Kita Program (AKAP)—a cash aid program for minimum wage workers—in its version of the P6.352 trillion national budget for 2025.
According to Sandra Aguinaldo’s report on “24 Oras,” Senator Imee Marcos said she removed the provision for the AKAP entirely. The AKAP and the Assistance to Individuals in Crisis Situations supposedly may be combined under one program.
“While we recognized the necessity of immediate relief by direct financial assistance, it is imperative to focus also on social protection iniiatives,” Marcos said in the Senate plenary deliberations on the General Appropriations Bill.
Marcos is the sponsor of the proposed budget of the Department of Social Welfare and Development.
Senators have criticized the AKAP because it was not included in the Senate and Houswe versions of the 2024 national budget. Reportedly, it only appeared in the version of the bicameral conference committee.
Under the proposed 2025 budget, AKAP’s proposed allocation increased more than three-fold from P13 million in 2024 to P39.8 billion in 2025.
House members said AKAP was needed by minimum wage earners whose income is P21,000 a month or less.
Senators, however, said the cash aid didn’t go to the poorest of the poor.
“Medyo nangangamba ako kasi ‘yung ibang kaibigan natin sa Senado, gusto raw i-scrap o itanggal ‘yung AKAP,” Speaker Martin Romualdez said.
(I am concerned because our friends in the Senate want the AKAP scrapped.)
He has asked the House Committee on Appropriations to work for the AKAP allocation getting reinstated in the budget during the bicameral conference committee.
“Sa Senado, ‘di yata nakakaintindi kasi ‘di yata sila bumababa masyado,” Romualdez said.
(Our friends in the Senate might not understand because they don’t usually go down to the communities.) —NB, GMA Integrated News
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