The House of Representatives on Friday passed on third and final reading another stimulus package worth P1.5 trillion that will focus on infrastructure spending and create more jobs in the countryside.
Voting 210 affirmative and 7 negative, the lawmakers passed House Bill 6920, or the Covid-19 Unemployment Reduction Economic Stimulus (CURES) Act of 2020.
In news statement, Deputy Speaker Luis Raymund Villafuerte, one of the principal authors of the bill, said the approved measure designed to be a three-year stimulus to set the stalled economy back on its high-growth path and initial boost as well for President Duterte’s new initiative to decongest Metro Manila.
The bill, which was also co-authored by Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano along with 212 more legislators, seeks to further raise state spending on health, education, agriculture, local roads, livelihood, information and communication technology (ICT) and tourism (HEAL IT) infrastructure.
“This measure aims to blunt the impact of what the International Monetary Fund expects to be the worst global recession since the Great Depression in the 1930s by stimulating economic activity and creating so many jobs in the countryside,” Villafuerte said.
“In so doing, CURES will, at the same time, boost President Duterte’s Balik Probinsya, Bagong Pag-Asa program by encouraging city dwellers to return to their home provinces amid the prospects of more employment and livelihood opportunities in the regions outside the national capital,” he added.
The CURES bill proposes a three-year, P1.5-trillion stimulus program anchored on infrastructure spending, particularly outside of Metro Manila, as the “cures” to reset the economy and generate a lot of jobs following the sudden work stoppage set off by the quarantine measures that were effected in mid-March to contain the Covid-19 pandemic.
With infrastructure investments having the highest multiplier effect on the economy, Villafuerte said “the House passed the CURES bill in a bid to dramatically raise state spending on HEAL IT projects and thus spur the domestic economy’s quick recovery from the coronavirus pandemic’s economic fallout.”
The CURES bill seeks to create, appropriate and automatically release a special outlay dubbed the CURES Fund equivalent to P1.5 trillion over a three-year period to bankroll infrastructure projects in the HEAL IT priority areas, at P500 billion worth of projects per year.
Chosen projects should be “shovel-ready,” or ready for construction within 90 days after the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) certifies actual fund release.
Villafuerte said the huge infrastructure projects outlined in the CURES bill shall be undertaken in conjunction with the “Balik Probinsya” program.
The CURES Fund would be available for a wide gamut of projects ranging from barangay health centers and municipal and city hospitals to digital equipment for testing, “tele-health” services and e-prescriptions to post-harvest facilities, bagsakan centers and food terminals, among others.
Such funds would also be available for infrastructure projects like walking or bicycle lanes; bridges across creeks and irrigation canals; evacuation centers and disaster emergency facilities; and roads going to tourist spots, beaches, mountain parks, new business districts or economic zones, and hubs for small and medium-sized enterprises.
Funding would be available, too, for projects like farm-to-market roads, roads connecting communities to schools and health facilities; along with the Enhanced Sustainable Livelihood Program of the Department of Social Welfare and Development, the Enhanced Tupad Program and Barangay Emergency Employment Program of the Department of Labor and Employment, and access of micro, small and medium-scale enterprises to credit and financing.
Moreover, the CURES Fund could be used to bankroll projects like the purchase and deployment of mobile network POPs (Telecommunications Point of Presence); implementation of digital platforms in doing government transactions; and acquisition of ICT equipment or laboratory facilities to enable immediate coordinated health response to suppress virus transmission or contact tracing.
An initial P500 billion of this CURES Fund shall be released on the first year of this 2020-2022 economic stimulus and employment program, with P500 billion more for release on the second year, and the remaining P500 billion on the third and final year.