It is with pleasure that we share with you Stratbase ADR Institute’s November 2020 Occasional Paper. Entitled “The Social Amelioration Program in the Philippines: Lessons on Financial Inclusion and the Use of ICT,” this paper aims to explain how the distribution of SAP could have been made better if we have resorted to the use of ICT, i.e., financial technology. It is instructive what digital technology could offer to alleviate the plight of the population in this time of pandemic.

By discussing the challenges confronted by SAP in the implementation, this study elaborated on the risk of transmission, geography, data inconsistencies and redundancies, and financial inclusion as the factors that have directly auected the proper and euective distribution of subsidies to the target beneficiaries.

Toward the end, the paper insinuated the role of both government and the private sector in the improvement of financial inclusion through digital technology in the country. Of course, good connectivity can only be assured if we have the necessary digital infrastructure.

In its entirety, this paper contributes to the furtherance of our Stratbase ADRi advocacy for financial inclusion, the growing role of digital technology in the delivery of public services, the enlargement of the country’s ICT capacity, and critical role of public-private partnerships in upgrading the digital infrastructure.