Contrary to the accusation hurdled against Starpay Corp. by Senator Manny Pacquiao on the alleged corruption in the distribution of cash aid, below is the official statement released to the media:
In the interest of truth and transparency, we would like to clear the baseless claims against Starpay Corporation on the issue of ayuda distribution. Over the last several days, statements, allegations, and insinuations have been released using unverified data and we would like to set the record straight with readily verifiable facts that are also accessible and available in the public domain.
As a licensed electronic money issuer (EMI) regulated by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), Starpay is committed to financial integrity and has gone through the necessary and extraordinary diligence to get its approval to operate. The required capitalization to apply for an EMI license is P100 million, which we complied with in 2017 as a prerequisite by the BSP for any EMI license application. Senator Manny Pacquiao’s statement during his press conference that our current capitalization is P62,000 is incorrect, while the correct and accurate figures are easily verifiable with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Furthermore, we have already liquidated the funds given to us and have refunded the amount for the unserved beneficiaries through several checks that were issued to the Department of Social Welfare’s (DSWD) Land Bank account totaling to P8.239 billion, as also mentioned by DSWD in their 4th of July release.
Starpay began its engagement with (DSWD) in June of 2020 when it signed a multilateral agreement alongside several other Financial Service Providers (FSP) to assist in the electronic disbursement of the Social Amelioration Program (SAP) after going through several meetings and presentations with both the DSWD and the BSP. We were initially assigned regions where the key consideration was the availability of our partner outlets numbering to about 6,000 nationwide. With this, we were awarded coverage of about 1.6 million beneficiaries.
In a very short period of time, Starpay was able to cover more than five million beneficiaries that were successfully paid as we went above and beyond the original allocation set by the DSWD and BSP. With our large partner network, we were able to expand and assist several million more beneficiaries to receive their much needed amelioration. This was achieved because of our unique online and offline distribution model, where beneficiaries without smartphones were given reference numbers to claim their amelioration at their own time and convenience. This ensured that despite lockdowns and social distancing concerns, beneficiaries could still claim their ayuda in a safe and effective manner.
On the supposed large number of complaints, we have on record a total of 1,615 complaints which were resolved and would only constitute to 0.03% of the total served number of beneficiaries.
Starpay is committed to serving the nation in our vision to become the Pitaka ng Bayan as we support the commendable digitalization of the ayuda distribution initiated by the DSWD and the BSP. We commit to upholding transparency and integrity in our operations and we will continue to work harder so that we will be able to provide the widest and most convenient range of digital financial services for the greatest good of all Filipinos.
