IBON said that\nthe government\u2019s supposed recovery plans are more concerned about supporting\nbusiness profits than helping the mass of unemployed Filipinos. The finance\ndepartment\u2019s Philippine Program for Recovery with Equity and Solidarity\n(PH-PROGRESO) and stimulus bills in Congress give considerable support to\nbusinesses while millions of affected families get token support at best.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
PH-PROGRESO of\nthe economic managers does not give any cash support to poor and low-income\nfamilies most in need, including the mass of unemployed, noted IBON. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for\nEnterprises Act (CREATE) proposal of PH-PROGRESO wants to give Php667 billion worth of\ncorporate tax breaks, the biggest in the country\u2019s history. The Php133.7\nbillion in loans and guarantees, Php142.8 billion in other tax cuts and\nforegone revenue, and Php233.3 billion in additional liquidity will also\nbenefit mainly enterprises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The group said that the stimulus bills in Congress, including the Accelerated Recovery and Investments Stimulus for the Economy of the Philippines (ARISE) recently passed by the House of Representatives (HOR), are not much better. ARISE allocates a total of Php40 billion for cash-for-work programs and Php42 billion for education subsidies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the other hand, it allocates Php1.2 trillion for formal enterprises, said the group. There is a strong likelihood that the bulk of this will go to large firms of oligarch conglomerates and possibly even foreign transnational corporations. Big firms dominate the tourism, transport, import and export, manufacturing, and service industries identified for support. There is also no explicit prohibition of foreign companies, IBON noted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile only\nPhp135 billion of the Php1.2 trillion is explicitly for micro, small and medium\nenterprises (MSMEs). Giving large firms equal access to the subsidized\nfinancing will likely crowd out MSMEs especially the neediest smaller firms,\nIBON said. The focus on formal enterprises will also mean that vast numbers of\ninformal earners and displaced workers will not be reached.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This Php1.2\ntrillion includes the Php110 billion for wage subsidies. The stimulus bill says\nthat freelancers, professionals, self-employed, and overseas Filipino workers\ncan also receive this. In practice, however, there is likely to be a bias for\nworkers in formal enterprises, which means the subsidies are in effect subsidies\nfor firms\u2019 payroll expenses, said the group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
IBON said that support to enterprises should give much greater and more explicit priority to Filipino MSMEs. These are the foundations of the domestic-oriented development so urgent amid the global recession and increasing protectionism even by the world\u2019s most powerful economies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the same time, government recovery plans need to give much greater direct income support to poor and low-income households. This is 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":"
government\u2019s supposed recovery plans are more concerned about supporting business profits than helping the mass of unemployed Filipinos. The finance department\u2019s PH-PROGRESO and stimulus bills in Congress give considerable support to businesses while millions of affected families get token support at best.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":9765,"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":[14],"tags":[2199,2273,347,2265,257,134,146,2280,116,521,309],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9764"}],"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=9764"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9764\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9771,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9764\/revisions\/9771"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}