The Duterte administration continues to be misleading about\nits COVID-19 response strategy, research group IBON said. A closer look shows\nthat the government is not actually spending as much as it claims, the group\nsaid. This casts doubts on its real efforts to battle the pandemic, especially\nwhen it comes to the most vulnerable Filipinos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Department of Finance (DOF) recently announced that\nPhp1.49 trillion would be allotted towards the administration\u2019s 4-pillar\nsocioeconomic strategy against COVID-19. \nThe 4-pillar program is supposed to ensure emergency aid to the poorest\nand vulnerable Filipinos, medical resources to fight the pandemic, fiscal and\nmonetary actions to keep the economy afloat, and an economic stimulus plan. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe Duterte government is still being intentionally\nmisleading about its COVID-19 response measures \u2013 which makes one doubt what\nelse about the COVID-19 crisis they\u2019re being untruthful about,\u201d IBON executive\ndirector Sonny Africa said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Africa noted the DOF claiming on its website that the \u201ctotal\nbudget\u201d of the 4-pillar strategy is now at Php1.49 trillion. He said this gives\nthe impression that the government is spending Php1.49 trillion to respond to\nthe pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In truth, it aims to spend just Php366.9 billion, and\nallocate Php133.7 billion for loan programs (Php13.7 billion) and credit\nguarantees (Php120 billion), he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Php366.9 billion includes only Php316.2 billion in\nsocial assistance which barely covers what IBON estimates is at least Php297\nbillion needed for every month of the lockdown, said Africa. The balance of\nPhp50.7 billion is for the health response and is hopefully enough to deal with\nthe worst public health crisis in the country’s history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Africa also pointed out that the Php1.49 trillion budget \u2013\nwhich gives the impression of huge spending for COVID-19 response \u2013 is bloated\nby items that should not even be counted as part of this supposed budget. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Among these is the Php142.8 billion in tax cuts, deductions\nand forgone revenues. These are not actually spent even if they are income\nlosses for the government, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The reported Php233 billion in estimated additional\nliquidity in the financial system from cuts in interest rate and reserve\nrequirement cuts should not be considered spending, said Africa. It is also not\neven sure how much of this will actually go to any kind of COVID-related\nresponse, he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Php610 billion in additional financing from foreign\nlenders (Php310 billion) and the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas purchase of\ngovernment bonds (Php300 billion) are also not spending as such. Africa said\nthat it would even be double-counting if any of this goes to the targeted Php366.9\nbillion in spending or the Php133.7 billion in loan programs\/credit guarantees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Africa said that the Duterte administration’s inability to properly cost its COVID-19 response measures is a direct result of its still not being clear what exactly its plan is. This despite being nearly six weeks into the lockdown already. \u201cThe government can be honest about this and the efforts it is taking, instead of, almost maliciously, trying to cover this up by dazzling the public with huge figures in the trillions of pesos,\u201d Africa said.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NEWS<\/p>\n
The Duterte administration continues to be misleading about its COVID-19 response strategy. A closer look shows that the government is not actually spending as much as it claims.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":9449,"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":""},"categories":[2048,14],"tags":[2241,2199,2218,523,347,2240,2239,2214],"class_list":["post-9447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-banner","category-news","tag-4-pillar-socioeconomic-strategy","tag-covid-19","tag-covid-19-response","tag-department-of-finance","tag-duterte-administration","tag-health-response","tag-social-assistance","tag-socioeconomic-relief","wpautop"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-24 04:11:10","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"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=9447"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9447\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9450,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9447\/revisions\/9450"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}