Interior Secretary Eduardo Año on Thursday said he will issue show cause orders against 43 mayors for having poor performance in distributing the Social Amelioration Program (SAP) cash assistance.

Año said they will be made to explain despite the two deadline extensions given to local government units (LGUs).

“While the vast majority of the LGUs were able to distribute their SAP before the deadline leading to a national pay-out rate of 97 percent yesterday, there are still some who were left behind, thus, the DILG and the public deserves to know why they failed to complete their distribution,” he said.

“We will release show cause order for the 43 left behind mayors nationwide because of their slow distribution of assistance on their constituents. We still have three percent family beneficiaries who still did not receive (assistance) as of Wednesday,” he added.

Año said the 43 LGUs had 79 percent and below accomplishment rate as of the final deadline on May 10 midnight.

Eleven of these mayors are in Western Visayas, eight are in MIMAROPA, five in Central Visayas, four in the Davao Region, and four in the National Capital Region.

LGUs that had poor distribution rate and did not meet the May 10 deadline also include two in Ilocos Region, two in Cagayan Valley; two in Calabarzon, two in Eastern Visayas, two Northern Mindanao, and one Central Luzon.

Año said graft and corruption cases related to the handling of the SAP fund will be investigated by the Philippine National Police (PNP) - Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG).

Año said the CIDG has more investigators than the DILG. Ella Dionisio/DMS