Research group IBON said that millions of Filipinos are\ngoing hungry and suffering the worst mass unemployment in the country\u2019s history\nas the sixth week of lockdown begins. The group said that government relief\nefforts, especially to the poorest Filipinos, is sluggish and minimal. The\nDuterte administration is not giving emergency relief enough attention and\nappears more focused on using \u201cmartial law-like\u201d measures to contain mounting\nsocial unrest, said the group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pres. Duterte\u2019s latest report to Congress shows how\ngovernment\u2019s socioeconomic response is still dragging and meager, even in\nachieving its already low targets. Even with emergency powers granted to the\nPresident, bureaucratic hurdles and inefficiencies continue to stall urgent\nrelief efforts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
IBON said that there has been little improvement in the\ndistribution of promised emergency subsidies. The group noted that just about\n4.3 million or less than one in four (24%) of the government\u2019s targeted 18\nmillion low income families have received cash assistance. Contrary to the\npromise of supposedly up to Php5,000-8,000 in aid each, recipients instead\nreceived just an average of Php4,392 each. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
No additional Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program<\/em>\n(4Ps) beneficiaries have been given assistance other than the 3.7 million\nfamilies reported three weeks ago. Also, just 617,141 more non-4Ps\nbeneficiaries have been served since then. Non-4Ps beneficiaries apparently\ninclude the previously reported 40,418 drivers of public utility vehicles and\ntransport network vehicle service; this is only 9% of the 435,000 drivers\nnationwide targeted for cash aid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This means that as many as 13.6 million or 76% of the 18\nmillion poorest families have not received emergency subsidies and are going\nhungry, said the group. IBON said that millions of households are at risk of\nhunger because of the poor reach of emergency subsidies and even of government\u2019s\nother financial assistance programs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Department of Labor Employment (DOLE) stopped accepting\napplications due to the depletion of the Php1.6 billion fund for its COVID-19\nAdjustment Measure Program (CAMP). Only 264,154 formal workers have received\nPhp5,000 each in financial assistance as of April 19. This is just 2.5% of the\nIBON-estimated 10.7 million workers in the country, a large majority of whom\nare affected by the lockdown. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The group said that it is unclear if affected workers unable\nto avail from CAMP will now be shouldered by the Department of Finance\u2019s Small\nBusiness Wage Subsidy Program. Not all formal workers in need meet the criteria\nof being employed in small businesses and registered with the Bureau of\nInternal Revenue and Social Security System.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile, just 235,949 informal workers were assisted by\nDOLE, which is still only 3.4% of 5.2 million non-agricultural informal earners\nestimated by IBON. They received just an average of Php2,300 each. <\/p>\n\n\n\n IBON said that financial assistance for farmers and\nfisherfolk is also slow and negligible. The Department of Agriculture has so\nfar reported giving assistance to 300,994 farmers under the Rice Farmers\nFinancial Assistance Program and 52,043 farmers under the Financial Subsidy for\nRice Farmers Program. This means only a total of 353,037 farmers have been\ngiven subsidies or just 3.6% of the country\u2019s 9.7 million farmers, farm workers\nand fisherfolk as per IBON estimates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n IBON expressed concern that the government is more focused\non using a militarist approach instead of swiftly resolving inefficiencies and\nensuring that emergency subsidies are given to all vulnerable households.\nGovernment\u2019s neglect could lead to more and more Filipinos violating quarantine\nas they seek ways to feed their families. <\/p>\n\n\n\n If the government gives more emphasis on \u201cmartial-law like\u201d measures instead of being more humane and sensitive to the plight of poor and low-income families under lockdown, millions of families will go hungry amid more human rights violations and mounting social unrest, said the group. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" NEWS<\/p>\n Millions of Filipinos are going hungry and suffering the worst mass unemployment in the country\u2019s history as the sixth week of lockdown begins.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":9425,"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":[2219,2199,2218,347,257,2231,159,2214,309],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9423"}],"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=9423"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9423\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9427,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9423\/revisions\/9427"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}