The country’s\nrecord joblessness demands extraordinary measures from the Duterte\nadministration to help tens of millions of families losing incomes, research\ngroup IBON said. Unfortunately, the response so far has been stingy and the\nsupposed recovery program does not appear to give much more. The group said\nthat unemployment is likely much worse with official figures underestimating\nthe real number of jobless Filipinos. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Philippine\nStatistics Authority (PSA) reported 7.3 million unemployed and 6.4 million\nunderemployed in April 2020, during the height of the enhanced community\nquarantine (ECQ). This is the worst recorded unemployment (7.3 million) and\ncombined unemployment and underemployment (13.7 million) in the country\u2019s\nhistory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
IBON said that these\nlabor force survey figures confirm how inadequate emergency subsidies during\nthe lockdown have been. The social welfare, labor and agriculture departments\neach had their own cash subsidy programs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some 19.3 million\nbeneficiaries have been reached, according to the president\u2019s latest 10th<\/sup>\nreport to Congress. But the group noted that the majority were not given\nassistance until the 8th<\/sup> week of the lockdown. IBON also said that the\nPhp108.1 billion distributed seems huge, but beneficiaries received only\nPhp5,606 on average for some 80 days of interrupted livelihoods and lost\nincomes. This is equivalent to just Php77 per beneficiary family per day, which\nis far from enough to ensure even a basic minimum standard of living.<\/p>\n\n\n\n IBON said that\nthe government\u2019s supposed recovery plans are even worse in being more concerned\nabout supporting business profits than helping the mass of unemployed\nFilipinos. The finance department\u2019s Philippine Program for Recovery with Equity\nand Solidarity (PH-PROGRESO) and stimulus bills in Congress give considerable\nsupport to businesses while millions of affected families get token support at\nbest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n PH-PROGRESO does not give any cash support to poor and low-income families most in need, including the mass of unemployed, noted IBON. This is while the proposal wants to give Php667 billion worth of corporate tax breaks, the biggest in the country\u2019s history. The Php133.7 billion in loans and guarantees, Php142.8 billion in other tax cuts and foregone revenue, and Php233.3 billion in additional liquidity will also benefit mainly enterprises. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Worse, the Duterte administration even wants to burden unemployed Filipinos with higher consumption taxes, said IBON. The finance department and its allies in Congress are already planning higher taxes on sweetened drinks, junk food, on-line shopping and viewing, and motor vehicles. Higher prices for Filipinos facing joblessness and income losses is unconscionable, said the group. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Government recovery plans need to give much greater direct income support to poor and low-income households, IBON stressed. This means both direct support for families\u2019 welfare as well as a meaningful stimulus that increases effective demand in the economy. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The country’s record joblessness demands extraordinary measures from the Duterte administration to help tens of millions of families losing incomes. Unfortunately, the response so far has been stingy and the supposed recovery program does not appear to give much more. <\/p>","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":9758,"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":[2281,2218,347,257,995,2280,309],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9757"}],"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=9757"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9757\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9768,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9757\/revisions\/9768"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}