DSWD Memorandum Circular No. 03, s. 2021 Omnibus Guidelines on the Recovery of Overpayments from Pantawid Pamilya Beneficiaries (2024)

May 20, 2021

DSWD MEMORANDUM CIRCULAR NO. 03, S. 2021

SUBJECT

Omnibus Guidelines on the Recovery of Overpayments from Pantawid Pamilya Beneficiaries

I.RATIONALE

Accurate and timely release of grants to beneficiaries is mandated by Republic Act No. 11310 or the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) Act. Hence, the Program endeavours to provide mechanisms and capacity building to its human resource compliment for the enhancement of its information systems and operational processes.

In instances when the household (HH) beneficiaries received overpayments of cash grants, it is imperative that such excess be recovered from them and returned to the government. Since entitlement to the Pantawid cash grants is conditional, overpayments resulting from non-compliance and/or data inaccuracy should be retrieved from the HH. This will prevent unfavourable findings from different regulatory offices and other negative feedback from the public in general. The beneficiaries will also be encouraged to faithfully comply with the Program conditions because their non-compliance will result to reduced grants.

Given that the existing guidelines in recovery of overpayment in Pantawid do not cover those provided to households apart from their usual cash grants, a unified mechanism and policy to cater to these subsidies and assistance is called for. In the previous years, overpayments were released to households due to inconsistent computation of grants versus their compliance data. However, the Program realized that it may also happen because of other reasons such as duplication of households in the database. In both cases, excess grants should be recovered for sound fiscal administration and program implementation.

To these ends, an exhaustive and inclusive policy for recovery of overpayments received by households is necessary.

II.BASIS OF THE GUIDELINES

1.Section 29, Article VI of the 1987 Philippine Constitution which provides that "No money shall be paid out of the Treasury except in pursuance of an appropriation made by law";

2.Republic Act No. 11310 or the 4Ps Act and its Implementing Rules and Regulations;

3.Guidelines on Recovery of Overpayments from Active Household Beneficiaries dated February 5, 2015;

4.Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program Operations Manual;

5.The General Appropriations Act; and

6.Applicable Rules and Regulations issued by the Commission on Audit (COA) and Department of Budget and Management.

III.OBJECTIVES

These Omnibus Guidelines aim to consolidate all previous issuances that seek to recover excess grants released to Pantawid Pamilya households regardless of time of occurrence and those subsidies mandated by special issuances of the Government as assistance in responding to a contingency. The latter may or may not be compliance-based but household's eligibility is provided by issuances providing for the said assistance or subsidy.

Specifically, these Guidelines aim to:

1.Provide mechanisms on how to recover the excess grants released to and received by the beneficiaries;

2.Provide mechanisms on how to recover excess subsidies/assistance given to households on account of unusual economic shock which disrupts their usual livelihood;

3.Specify and provide the roles of the Provincial Links, City/Municipal Links (C/MLs), Municipal Roving Bookkeeper (MRB), DSWD Field Office (FO) Cashier, Financial Analyst (FA) III for Cash Grants, Regional System Focal, and other Program staff that may be involved in recovering overpayments and/or subsidies given to the beneficiaries; and

4.Protect the cash that will be recovered from the beneficiaries by providing accountability of each staff involved in the process of recovering overpayments.

IV. DEFINITION OF TERMS

a.Overpayment — refers to cash grants computed for a Pantawid Pamilya beneficiary and actually received by them on a particular Pay Period which are in excess of what they rightfully earned based on their compliance data for said period. It also includes excess cash grants given as emergency subsidy which should be recovered based on the parameters.

b.Top-up cash grants — refer to grants given to the beneficiaries during special circ*mstances such as post-disaster relief, which shall not be considered as overpayment subject to recovery.

c.Emergency Subsidy — refers to other form of cash grants which may be provided to Pantawid households to help them cope with an unexpected contingency.

d.Underpayment — refers to cash grants to which a Pantawid Pamilya beneficiaries are entitled to receive based on their compliance data for a particular Pay Period but for some reason/s were not computed and released to them.

e.Payroll Adjustment Module (PAM) — refers to an information technology module developed by the Information and Communications Technology Management Service (ICTMS) to manage overpayments received by Pantawid Pamilya HHs pursuant to the rules/guidelines provided herein.

f.Special Collecting Officer (SCO)/Grants Recovery Personnel (GRP) — refers to a field personnel, preferably, the Municipal Roving Bookkeeper, who shall be designated through a Special Order (see attached template 1) signed by competent official of the Department and will be entrusted with recovering the overpayment of an inactive/delisted HH beneficiary.

Each SCO/GRP shall only be designated as such if the HH from whom an overpayment will be collected is under his/her caseload.

g.Active Households — refer to those which are tagged in the Pantawid Pamilya Information System (PPIS) as eligible for monitoring and receipt of grants.

h.Inactive Households — refer to a household registered but temporarily not monitored and can be reinstated to the program upon validation.

V.OPERATIONAL POLICY

A.GENERATION AND VERIFICATION OF AFFECTED HOUSEHOLD

i.Overpayment to households in the previous years shall be prioritized in payroll adjustment or manual collection for recovery, as applicable.

ii.The Information and Communications Technology Management Service (ICTMS) shall generate the list of HHs with overpayments from the previous years by comparing the computed payroll of each HH in the Pantawid Pamilya Information System (PPIS) against their compliance data from Pay Period 1 of 2013 to Pay Period 2 2014 and in the previous period/years corresponding to their overpayment.

iii.Upon generation, ICTMS shall forward the list of affected HHs to the National Program Management Office (NPMO) and to the Financial Management Service-Special Projects (FMS-SP) for review and reconciliation of any amount already returned by a household. The NPMO shall communicate to all Field Offices within thirty (30) days from approval of these Guidelines the list of affected HHs and to submit those who already returned their overpayments, and the amount thereof if not yet in full.

iv.Within three (3) days from receipt by NPMO of the updated list of households with overpayments in the previous years, the same shall be sent to FMS-SP for uploading in the PAM for recovery of any balance of the excess grants.

All households verified by the FOs to have fully returned their overpayments shall be excluded from recovery of overpayments.

v.Other cases of overpayment and excess emergency subsidy as reported to or discovered by NPMO shall be verified with the Field Offices and the list of households endorsed to them for verification within three (3) days upon receipt of report/discovery.

If the overpayment or excess emergency subsidy was discovered and verified by the FO, its endorsem*nt to the NPMO shall contain the attestation referred to in the immediately succeeding section.

vi.After verification, the list shall be returned to the NPMO with the compliance data of the households during the period when they received the overpayment. Said compliance data shall be issued by the appropriate system focal and to be used in determining overpayment. For this purpose, both the system focal and FA III in the Field Office shall issue a certificate stating that a particular HH/s received grants in excess of what should be received by them, stating the amount thereof, in said period.

In case of emergency subsidy, the list shall be supported by an attestation of the appropriate personnel/worker that the households received an excess.

vii.The list of HHs with overpayment shall be submitted to the NPMO using TEMPLATE A, certified by the Regional Program Coordinator (RPC), approved by the Regional Director (RD), and forwarded to the NPMO within seven (7) days from approval.

viii.If submitted list of HHs with overpayment to be correct, NPMO same shall send it back to FMS-SP, within three (3) days from the receipt, for uploading to the PAM. The actions to be taken shall be approved by the FMS-SP Director.

ix.The FMS-SP shall inform the NPMO within three (3) days after the uploading of the list to the PAM, arranged according to the following:

a.List of Active HHs with overpayment uploaded to PAM (TEMPLATE B); and

b.List of Inactive HHs with overpayment uploaded to PAM (TEMPLATE C);

x.Active HHs with overpaid grants or emergency subsidy shall be subjected to adjustment of grants pursuant to Section V.B. hereof.

Recovery of excess emergency subsidy shall consider issuances of the appropriate Government Office, Agency, Bureau or Task Force, if any.

xi.Inactive HHs with overpayments shall be subjected to the provisions of Section V.C. hereof for recovery of their excess cash grants.

B.RECOVERY OF OVERPAYMENT FROM ACTIVE HOUSEHOLDS

i.Active households with outstanding overpayments from the previous period/years and/or due to other reasons such as emergency subsidy shall be subjected to payroll adjustment as provided herein.

ii.Within five (5) days upon receipt of the certified list of HHs with overpayment uploaded to PAM (TEMPLATE B), FMS-SP shall initiate payroll adjustment.

FO determined overpayments shall be endorsed to NPMO within fifteen (15) days upon validation by submitting the list of HHs prepared by the FA III and appropriate system focal certified by the RPC and approved by the Regional Director.

Items viii and ix of Section V.A shall then be observed.

iii.The RPMO through the C/MLs shall inform the HHs about the adjustment in their grants through a "Paunawa ng Pagbabawas ng Sobrang Grants" (TEMPLATE D), and shall secure their conformity to the recovery, at least 15 days before the next payout. Said notice shall be signed by the RD.

iv.Payroll adjustment shall be effected on the Type 1-CVS Regular Payrolls of Active HHs immediately on the succeeding Pay Period following the approval of the request stated in item ii of this section.

v.Fifty percent (50%) of the computed cash grants based on the Notice of Approved Payroll Action (NAPA) during the monitoring period shall be deducted. If 50% of the computed cash grants based on NAPA is greater than the overpayment, the deduction is up to the amount of overpayment only.

Should there be a balance in the overpayment after adjustment, the same rule shall apply in the succeeding monitoring period until the 50% of the computed grants is greater than the remaining overpayment. Thereafter, the remaining overpayment shall be deducted in full as illustrated below:

Particulars	First Deduction	Succeeding Deduction
Regardless of Amount	50% of computed cash grants based on NAPA or the full amount of overpayment if less than 50% of computed grants	50% of computed cash grants based on NAPA or the full amount of overpayment if less than 50% of computed grants

Particulars	Amount of Grants based on NAPA during the Period	Amount of Overpayment from the previous period/year	Amount of Adjustment to Grants	Amount of Net Cash Grants after the adjustment	Outstanding Balance after adjustment to be deducted in the next period
(a)	(b)	(c)	d = b - c	e = b - d	f = c - d
Overpayment is equal (=) to 50% of the cash grants based on NAPA	4,400	2,200	2,200	2,200
Overpayment is less (<) than the 50% of the cash grants based on	4,400	2,000	2,000	2,400
Overpayment is greater (>) than the 50% of the cash grants based	4,400	2,400	2,200	2,200	200

vi.Deduction of the amount of overpayment shall be applied to the education and health grants first and last to the rice subsidy.

vii.FMS-SP shall prepare an Obligation Request and Status (ObRS) per Region and per mode of payment of the computed Type 1-CVS Regular payrolls based on the NAPA of Active HHs as submitted by NPMO. Each ObRS shall be supported with two (2) Disbursem*nt Vouchers (DVs) and Payroll Summaries.

a.One (1) DV shall reflect the amount of adjustments done and shall indicate the Bureau of Treasury as the Payee (TEMPLATE E); and

b.Another shall reflect the adjusted amounts with payee:

•"Landbank of the Philippines" for HHs under Cash Card (CC) mode of payment (TEMPLATE F) or

•"DSWD-Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) through the LBP Conduits" for HHs with mode of payment other than CC (TEMPLATE G).

Transactions shall be processed in accordance with the government accounting and auditing rules and regulations.

The Central Office (CO) Accounting Division shall record the gross amount of current Pantawid grants in the books of accounts and adjust the appropriate accounts for the collection of overpayment.

viii.Payroll files based from the adjustment shall then be generated and sent to Landbank of the Philippines and the Field Offices for payout.

ix.Monitoring and reporting of cash grants payout and processing of unclaimed cash grants shall be in accordance with the existing procedures and guidelines.

x.For transparency and auditing purposes, the adjustment made in every pay period shall be reflected in each of the affected HH's CVS and Payroll History in the PPIS.

xi.Adjustments made due to recovery of overpayments shall not be subject to Retro payment.