To fund government’s response against Covid-19, President Duterte said the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) has identified items that may be discontinued in the 2019 and 2020 General Appropriations Act amounting to P189.82 billion.
In his second weekly report to Congress as mandated by the Bayanihan to Heal as One Act, the President said of this unreleased appropriations worth P189.8 billion, P186.5 billion were taken from the 2020 national budget, while P3.3 billion were from the 2019 national budget. These funds were sourced from the personal services (PS), maintenance and other operating expenses (MOOE), financial expenses (FinEx), and capital outlay (CO) items under the 2019 continuing appropriations and 2020 General Appropriations Act.
According to the President, the line departments are assisting the DBM in determining their respective programs, projects, and activities, which can be discontinued to generate savings to augment Covid-19 response measures.
Of the total unreleased appropriations, he added P4.2 billion was sourced from the budgetary support to government corporations under the special purpose fund. President Duterte said P100 billion in allotments has already been released to the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD).
As of April 3, the DBM reported that additional cash allocations worth P5.182 billion were released to the following departments to cover their Covid-19 response activities, namely: the Department of Health (DOH) at P600 million; DSWD at P3.9 billion; Department of the Interior and Local Government at P520.62 million; Department of Science and Technology at P53.23 million; and Department of Labor and Employment at P100 million.
The President said the Land Bank of the Philippines has remitted to the Bureau of the Treasury cash balances from various government agencies amounting to P12.13 billion, unutilized balance of Letter of Credit procured by the DOH and the Armed Forces of the Philippines in the total amount of P4.4 billion and unutilized Unconditional Cash Transfer funds amounting to P5.5 billion.
He also said the Department of Finance has collected dividend contributions in the amount of P78.64 billion from 12 government-owned and -controlled corporations to fund the government’s Covid-19 response.
Meanwhile, President Duterte said other instrumentalities like the Environmental Management Bureau has allocated P2.352 million from its climate-change support activities to be realigned for Covid-19 programs and projects.
He said Transco has also directed the use of available unutilized funds for the purchase of personal protective equipment (PPE) for Covid-19 frontliners, thermal scanners, relief goods, and donation in the amount of P3 million to the Philippine Red Cross.
He added the Philippine Veterans Affairs Office has allocated its agency funds to address and respond to the Covid-19, including social amelioration measures for severely affected communities and sectors.
Image credits: Roy Domingo