The Department of Labor and Employment has been tagged by the Commission on Audit over the distribution of their one-time financial support program dubbed as the “Covid-19 Adjustment Measures Program” or CAMP.

CAMP, which was first launched during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020, was intended to provide one-time P5,000 cash assistance to workers in the private sector displaced by business closures brought on by the health crisis.

The audit agency, however, said more than P70 million funds in CAMP-Bayanihan 2 went to 14,052 beneficiaries who were reported to have also received other forms of financial assistance which, as per guidelines, should have been excluded from the list of beneficiaries.

The program was funded with a P10.89-budget allocation divided into CAMP-Bayanihan 1 and CAMP-Bayanihan 2, with the latter intended as an expansion of the first distribution period.

CoA, in its performance audit report of the program, reported a 100-percent progress toward its target to distribute cash aid to 2.17 million workers, and a 100-percent and 99.87-percent in its disbursement of cash assistance in CAMP-Bayanihan 1 and Bayanihan 2, respectively.

The audit agency, however, said more than P70 million funds in CAMP-Bayanihan 2 went to 14,052 beneficiaries who were reported to have also received other forms of financial assistance which, as per guidelines, should have been excluded from the list of beneficiaries.

These include 6,181 who have also received a Small Business Wage Subsidy or SBWS, and 33 who received both SBWS and the Social Amelioration Program or SAP.

Another batch of 7,838 beneficiaries was tagged by COA as “probable ineligible beneficiaries,” with 5,260 people who have received both CAMP-Bayanihan 2 and SAP, and 2,578 people whose salaries are above P40,000.

“Based on the interview, DoLE only relied on applicants’ self-declaration since there was no available and complete centralized database that would serve as a basis for determining whether an applicant already received financial assistance from other programs,” CoA said in the report.

“Only the DoLE, Department of Finance, and the Social Security System were able to have a data sharing agreement on their beneficiaries,” it added.

It said the existence of ineligible beneficiaries, among other things, was because of manual cross-checking of SBWS recipients and lack of awareness among some DoLE regional offices over the SBWS program.

“The evaluators of the said (regional offices) only relied on the attestation of the applicant,” CoA said.

Of at least 147 CAMP beneficiaries, for instance, more than 120 said they have also received aid through SAP by the Department of Labor and Employment, while 10 are reportedly part of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program or 4Ps.

The rest were beneficiaries of other programs, such as the Department of Social Welfare and Development’s Assistance to Individuals in Crisis Situation or AICS and the DoLE-AKAP for Overseas Filipino Workers, as well as the Department of Agriculture’s own SAP program and the Barangay Financial Assistance.

Daily Tribune sought DoLE’s comment regarding the CoA observations but has not yet responded as of writing.