Nearly four weeks into the government\u2019s military lockdown\nand especially with the two-week extension, research group IBON said that emergency\nrelief measures are still too slow and too small. The group said that millions\nof poor and vulnerable families are facing unnecessary difficulty in meeting\ntheir basic needs under the lockdown. The government needs to show greater\npolitical will and do away with bureaucratic obstacles to relief efforts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Duterte administration recently declared the extension\nof the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) of the entire Luzon island until\nApril 30. This is supposed to help contain the spread of COVID-19 as well as\ngive government more time to beef up its public health response and prepare for\na post-lockdown scenario. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
IBON pointed out however that government socioeconomic\nrelief efforts are snail-paced and inadequate. The group said that if the\nadministration remains indifferent and does not step up its response, the\ndifficult situation of millions of vulnerable families will worsen under the\nextended lockdown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
IBON estimates 14.5 million dislocated workers and informal\nearners, and up to 7.5 million low-income families vulnerable to shocks to\ntheir livelihood just in Luzon. The government acknowledged that the poorest 18\nmillion households in the country need assistance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Based on Pres. Duterte\u2019s most recent report to Congress, the\ngroup noted that only Php26.3 billion has been spent on COVID-19 response so\nfar. This is just 9.6% of its supposed Php275 billion budget for dealing with\nthe pandemic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
IBON interpreted budget items in the president\u2019s report as\ndetailing plans for the Php275 billion response. For socioeconomic relief, only\nthe following was reported spent: Php63 million (55.3%) of Php114 million\nallocated for emergency packs, and Php22.7 billion (14.7%) of Php154.8 billion\nfor cash transfers, financial assistance and pensions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
IBON said that millions of poor households, workers and\ninformal earners have yet to be assisted. Only 190,217 food packs were\ndistributed by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD). <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The group noted that the president\u2019s report confusingly\nmentioned cash transfers to 3.7 million \u201cbeneficiaries of the Pantawid\nPamilyang Pilipino Program<\/em>\u201d and also to 1.2 million \u201cConditional Cash\nTransfer beneficiaries of the DSWD\u201d. In any case, this is at most 20-27% of\ngovernment\u2019s targeted 18 million beneficiaries. They reportedly received an\naverage of Php4,400-5,000 each in cash and non-cash subsidies under the\nEmergency Subsidy Program (ESP). There was no report of financial assistance\ngiven to indigent senior citizens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Only 88,388 workers received Php5,000 in financial\nassistance under the COVID-19 Adjustment Measures Program (CAMP) of the\nDepartment of Labor and Employment (DOLE). This is just 0.8% of 10.7 million workers\nin formal establishments nationwide. Only 55,934 informal workers became\nwork-for-pay beneficiaries of DOLE\u2019s Tulong Panghanapbuhay sa Ating<\/em>\nDisadvantaged\/Displaced Workers (TUPAD) programs and received financial\nassistance (at an average of Php3,121 each). This is just 1% of up to 5.2\nmillion non-agricultural informal earners nationwide. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile, 357,614 farmers and fisherfolk supposedly\nreceived financial assistance from the Department of Agriculture (DA) but no\nfigures were provided. In any case, this is just 3.7% of the country\u2019s 9.7 million\nfarmers, farm workers and fisherfolk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n IBON said that the government should waste no time in ensuring the socioeconomic needs of the poorest and most vulnerable Filipinos who are increasingly challenged to cope with the extended lockdown. The government can immediately implement urgent socioeconomic interventions<\/a> such as substantial provision of emergency relief packages, unconditional cash transfers, wage subsidiesand financial assistance, among others, said the group.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" NEWS<\/p>\n Nearly four weeks into the government\u2019s military lockdown and especially with the two-week extension, emergency relief measures are still too slow and too small.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":9347,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_expiration-date-status":"saved","_expiration-date":0,"_expiration-date-type":"","_expiration-date-categories":[],"_expiration-date-options":[]},"categories":[2048,14],"tags":[2199,2218,2208,347,2203,2214],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9345"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9345"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9345\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9349,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9345\/revisions\/9349"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}