At the end of the original month-long lockdown period and on\nthe first day of its extension, research group IBON said that the government is\nstill failing to give millions of poor and vulnerable Filipinos the socioeconomic\nrelief they need. Poor households have struggled to survive four weeks of the\nenhanced community quarantine (ECQ) and will only endure greater difficulties\nduring the two-week extension. The Duterte administration needs to let go of\nits burdensome bureaucratic requirements, increase funding, and expedite\ngetting help to all families in need, said the group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Duterte administration released the third report on its\nCOVID-19 response as required under the Bayanihan<\/em> Heal as One Act or\nRepublic Act (RA) 11469 which granted Pres. Duterte emergency powers. IBON said\nthat millions of Filipinos are still not getting relief despite these emergency\npowers, even measured against the administration\u2019s already low targets. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The group noted that no additional beneficiaries were given\nemergency subsidies since the 3.7 million reported last week. This is only\none-fifth or 21% of the 18 million low-income families targeted by the\ngovernment. They also only received an average of Php4,391 which is barely half\nthe maximum Php8,000 the government promised.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile, the number of workers and informal earners that\nreceived financial assistance has increased but this is still way below the\nmillions of displaced workers and informal earners as per IBON estimates. <\/p>\n\n\n\n IBON said that the number of workers assisted by the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) increased by only 79,553 to 167,941, which is just 1.7% of 10.7 million workers. The number of informal workers assisted went up by only 62,152 to 118,086, or only 2.3% of 5.2 million non-agricultural informal earners. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Emergency subsidies were also provided to 40,418 drivers at\nPhp8,000 each through a memorandum of agreement (MOA) between the Department of\nSocial Welfare and Development (DSWD), Land Transportation and Franchising\nBoard (LTFRB) and Land Bank of the Philippines (LBP). But this is just 9% of\nthe 435,000 drivers targeted for assistance under the MOA, said the group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n IBON also noted that some farmers have finally received cash\nassistance from the Department of Agriculture (DA). The agency reported giving\nPhp5,000 each in unconditional cash transfers to 319,489 farmer beneficiaries.\nHowever, this is only 3.3% of the IBON-estimated 9.7 million farmers, farm\nworkers and fisherfolk needing assistance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n IBON said that the unambitious targets as well as snail-paced and measly socioeconomic response into the fifth week of lockdown only affirms government\u2019s continued indifference and negligence, especially towards the poorest and most vulnerable. More and more Filipino families will be pushed into deeper poverty under the COVID-19 lockdown if government does not speed up and significantly expand socioeconomic relief and response to reach all those needing assistance, said the group.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" NEWS<\/p>\n Poor households have struggled to survive four weeks of the enhanced community quarantine and will only endure greater difficulties during the two-week extension. The Duterte administration needs to let go of its burdensome bureaucratic requirements, increase funding, and expedite getting help to all families in need.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":9380,"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":[1,2048,14],"tags":[2219,2199,2218,347,2220,2214],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9378"}],"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=9378"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9378\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9401,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9378\/revisions\/9401"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}