BY GENALYN D. KABILING
The government’s coronavirus response may not be perfect but the administration is doing enough within its means to save lives and livelihood, Presidential Communications Secretary Martin Andanar said Monday.
Andanar defended the government’s containment strategy after getting a failing grade from some health experts, admitting that the government’s financial resources are limited.
“We have programs that the government have implemented for the past few months to address the huge problem of the pandemic. It’s not perfect but the entire world is grappling with this problem,” he said over ANC Headstart.
“The government has done enough within its means because you see we do not have an infinite source of budget for the government,” he said.
He explained that the government’s budget to bankroll various programs, from healthcare to social protection programs, is heavily dependent on the taxes collected by agencies like the Bureau of Internal Revenue.
Andanar said the Social Amelioration Program is so far the government’s “biggest program that has given a very wide social net in terms of assistance to the public.” “Our country is not a welfare country. But then again, we were able to do that – it’s not enough, but it’s expected,” he added.
From a high 6.7 percent economic growth before the pandemic, Andanar said the economy has contracted by 0.2 percent in the first quarter of the year due to the health emergency. “It’s understandable that people lose jobs but the government is doing everything that every day, every family can eat three times a day,” he said.
Despite criticisms from some groups on the alleged mishandling of the pandemic, Andanar highlighted the government’s accomplishments to stem the spread of the disease and cushion its impact on the people and the economy.
He said the government moved to strengthen healthcare systems, from improving hospital capacity, building quarantine and isolation centers, to expanding testing efforts.
“As of July also of this year, the Philippines is capable of conducting 24,000 tests in which there have already been more than a million total individual tested for COVID-19,” he said.
To ease the economic impact of the pandemic on the people, Andanar said the government also distributed more than P100 billion in subsidies to more than 27 million beneficiaries in the country.
Under the second tranche of the SAP, he said they have provided subsidies to 3.5 million families of the 17-million target beneficiaries.
To help the public health workers manning the coronavirus front lines, Andanar said the government has raised the salary of government nurses.
“The Duterte administration has insured its promise of implementing the increase in salary grade to government nurses from Salary Grade 11 to SG 15, increasing their income by as much as P10,000 per month under the Salary Standardization Law,” he said.
On allegations that the private sector, not the government, moved early on to respond to the heath crisis, Andanar said the administration has actually pushed for a whole-of-nation approach in dealing with the pandemic.
He said President Duterte remains thankful for the contribution of the private sector to help limit the spread of the outbreak.
“It’s a whole-of-nation approach. That’s been the policy of this administration to include the private sector in the solution. The President has mentioned that, he thanked the private sector for lending a helping hand,” he said.
