P2.7B fuel subsidy nearly lost to duplicates, ghost drivers — Gatchalian

At least P2.7 billion in government resources would have been lost from the fuel subsidy program for public utility vehicle (PUV) drivers due to duplicate entries and “ghost” beneficiaries in the payout list, the Department of Social Welfare and Development said Wednesday. 

DSWD Secretary Rex Gatchalian told members of the Senate PROTECT Committee that the situation was avoided by keeping the payout manual or requiring drivers to go to the distribution center to personally receive the fuel subsidy worth P5,000.

Gatchalian admitted that the manual verification process is slow due to long waiting lines. In worst cases, the long queue had resulted in beneficiaries passing out, while a few died due to extreme heat at the payout site. 

Gatchalian claimed that the “DSWD is not averse to using e-wallets” to expedite the payouts, as long as the database provided to them is error-free. 

“But what we found out from this exercise is the lack of a clean list...What was promised to us as a clean list by the TNCs (Transport Network Companies), more particularly, is now what we call a junk list,” he told senators. 

“In the course of doing the payouts, we found out duplicates, triplicates, errors in names and everything, that if we simply put it in the e-wallet without batting an eyelash, because the [TNCs already] certified them, we would have lost P2.7 billion of much-needed resources. That's what will go to ghost riders,” he added. 

In some cases, TNVS (Transport Network Vehicle Service) drivers, or those with ride-hailing apps, submitted their registration twice because they operate on multiple apps. The most prevalent case involves the suffix “Jr.” 

Gatchalian said some TNVS drivers would submit two entries, one without a suffix and another with the suffix. This gap could have been exploited by some beneficiaries if the DSWD had resorted to a hybrid digital payout system, he warned.

“So you can imagine, if we deposited this directly to the e-wallet, all they had to do was to create another ID and open two GCash accounts or two Maya accounts. So that's where we have a problem,” he lamented.

Nonetheless, Gatchalian claimed that the DSWD is taking a “more aggressive” approach to sanitizing the database, particularly regarding the TNV.

According to the DSWD chief, only 80 percent of PUV drivers listed in the database claimed the cash assistance, while the 20 percent “didn’t show up.”

At present, the DSWD has already disbursed P5.7 billion in fuel subsidy. The amount was catered to over 1.1 million PUV drivers nationwide, including tricycle jeepney drivers, motorcycle taxi, and TNV drivers. 

Tricycle drivers accounted for the lion’s share at 851,000, followed by service delivery riders at 139,00, and MC taxi drivers at 68,000. Jeepney drivers ranked fourth at 41,000, while TNV drivers came in fifth at 40,000.