THE COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing government lockdowns in Metro Manila and elsewhere in the country have had tremendous impact on the country’s economic development and progress.
At the start of this year, the country was out to make up for the previous year’s budget delay, with Congress approving early in January a P4.1-trilllion National Budget for 2020, more than half of which was immediately released in January.
Then came COVID-19, starting in Wuhan, China, then spreading to the Philippines via a Chinese visitor, then on to the rest of the world. Along with the rise in infections and deaths, national economies were devastated.
The Philippines has been able to hold down the number of infections and deaths through an early lockdown of Metro Manila and the rest of Luzon, along with a declaration of a state of calamity in the rest of the country. This week, the government moved to address the economic impact of COVID-19 with a proposed P1.5-trillion economic stimulus bill.
The bill has been named the COVID-19 Unemployment Reduction Economic Stimulus (CURES) Act. It provides for P500 billion in each of the three years of the program for the construction of barangay health centers, municipal and city hospitals, and programs for tele-health services. There will be funds for farm-to-market roads, livelihood programs under the Department of Social Welfare and Development, and the barangay emergency employment program of the Department of Labor and Employment.
Priority funding will be given to projects that will provide employment during and after construction work, and projects with high potential for linkages with local businesses, and for providing work for skilled and unskilled workers. Priority for fund releases will be given to areas with high poverty rates and low per-capita income.
Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano and the rest of the entire leadership of the House of Representatives are behind HB 6709 which has been filed with the House Defeat-COVID-19 Committee. Once it is enacted into law, its implementation will be monitored by a joint congressional oversight committee.
In confronting the COVID-19 problem, we acted quickly to limit its impact on the lives and health of our people. We have also moved to provide food and monetary assistance to the poorest among our people who have suffered loss of livelihood with the closure of enterprises of all kinds.
Now it is time to attend to the economic impact of COVID-19. Our private sector has fared relatively well in the crisis compared to those in many other countries. Our business enterprises – from the biggest corporations to the smallest family enterprises – will lead the economic recovery of the country in the coming months.
The government will boost this recovery effort with this CURES stimulus bill which will provide P1.5 trillion over the next three years, on top of the P4.1 trillion already approved in the 2020 budget and the new trillions in the coming 2021 and 2022 national appropriation acts.
We have suffered severely from COVID-19 like most of the rest of the world, but we are now beginning to plan and act to recover from our losses with this P1.5-trillion CURES bill in Congress.
