COVID-19 response
Inessential infra isn’t more important than health, ayuda
September 16, 2021
Why spend more on military and police than small businesses and farmers?
September 16, 2021
No more COVID-19 ayuda, stingy increases in social assistance
September 12, 2021
How much ayuda is in the proposed 2022 budget? There’s just a Php2.7 billion increase in emergency assistance programs, and only an additional Php16.1 billion for other social assistance programs. In contrast, the infrastructure budget increases by Php106.7 billion.
Business-as-usual 2022 budget unresponsive to pandemic – IBON
August 26, 2021
The proposed 2022 national budget is perplexingly business-as-usual with the same priorities as before the pandemic. There is still disproportionate attention to infrastructure, the military and police, and debt service with only marginal changes to the health and social protection budgets. This latest spending plan should not just be scrutinized but also retailored to give due attention to urgent medical and economic responses.
2022 budget stalls recovery, worsens inequality
August 23, 2021
Government’s proposed 2022 national budget is the second budget in a row that fails to respond to the pandemic. The Duterte administration is not spending enough on economic stimulus, health, ayuda, and small businesses which are the most important things to recover quickly and stop worsening deprivation. The economic managers’ misguided fiscal conservatism is counterproductive and needs urgent correction.
Duterte administration’s shift to MECQ meaningless without urgent COVID-19 steps
August 20, 2021
The government has announced the easing of community quarantines. But new cases are still rising and there are no signs of government taking additional measures to fix the health system during the last two weeks of stricter lockdowns. If the health system is as weak as ever, what’s our way out of the pandemic?
Jobs crisis rages, ayuda diminishes
August 17, 2021
Ayuda helped mitigate the unemployment shock in April last year but this dropped to just token amounts afterwards despite millions still being unemployed and in desperate need of assistance. Poor pandemic response just made things even worse.
The Family Living Wage (as of July 2021)
August 13, 2021
How much does a family need to live decently? With ayuda still slow in coming and too little at that, millions of Filipino families aren’t going to be able to meet their basic needs.
PhilHealth’s slow COVID claims processing
August 12, 2021
DOH wasn’t just underspending or spending wastefully — PhilHealth has also been helping too few and too slowly. Philhealth only paid for a fraction of 17.4 million COVID tests and over 100,000 hospitalizations since last year.
