By Jovee Marie N. Dela Cruz & Butch Fernandez
Senate Minority Leader Franklin M. Drilon assured support Sunday for the House-approved P162-billion stimulus funding—P22 billion more than the Senate’s version—clearing the way for early approval by Congress of the Bayanihan 2 funding authority for the Duterte administration’s Covid response.The House of Representatives is set to approve on third and final reading this week the proposed Bayanihan to Recover as One Act or the Bayanihan 2.
With the target final approval this week, Deputy Speaker for Finance Luis Raymund Villafuerte said Congress is hoping to provide President Duterte by September with special powers anew to best deal with the health crisis and the economic crisis.
Acknowledging recession’s “grim reality [that] Filipinos are hungry, jobless and with no savings,” Drilon pushed for a “bigger budget” for the Social Amelioration Program (SAP).
The Senate Minority Leader emphasized the “need to increase the stimulus fund under the Bayanihan 2.”
The Senate version passed on third reading had provided only for P140 billion, a sum pegged on estimated provided by economic managers of the resources available.
Joint session
IN a statement, Villafuerte said HB 6953 also mandates the allocation of about P10.5 billion to enable the hiring of additional health-care workers and to provide additional allowances and benefits to medical frontliners.
The House leader said that following the House’s final approval of HB 6953, both chambers could then hold bicameral conference committee negotiations to hammer out a consolidated version of Bayanihan 2 for submission to Duterte.
“In reality, P162 billion is not enough,” Villafuerte said. “This body feels the national government can afford P162 billion—that’s why we’re passing it.”
The lawmaker added that the swift final approval of HB 6953 is expected after leaders of different political parties and party-list groups in the chamber signed a “Manifesto of Unity” committing the bill’s plenary passage at the soonest time possible.
“Bayanihan 2 will give continued special powers to the President to beat the pandemic that, according to the WHO [World Health Organization], has reached a ‘dangerous’ stage of accelerated spread as governments across the world start relaxing mobility restrictions and reopening their economies,” Villafuerte said when he sponsored the bill on the floor.
Measure’s provisions
A member of the Joint Congressional Oversight Committee (JCOC) that monitored the implementation of Republic Act (RA) 11469, Villafuerte said the swift action of the House on HB 6953 was in response to Duterte’s appeal in his State of the Nation Address to have the measure passed immediately.
Moreover, he said there is a P10-billion subsidy for the National Health Insurance Program of the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) to cover the Covid-19 expanding test program and to fund the confinement of infected patients.
HB 6953 provides, too, for the following: life insurance; compensation benefit of P100,000 to health-care workers infected with Covid-19; and, compensation of P1 million to the family of each frontliner who dies from the illness.
Villafuerte said the measure also provides additional funding for the purchase of protective personal equipment and construction of quarantine and isolation facilities.
Deemed inadequate
The House version also includes funds for the implementation of cash-for-work programs, new capital for government financial institutions (GFIs) to expand their provision of credit to pandemic-hit businesses, low-interest credit facilities for the agriculture sector and assistance to the transportation and tourism industries.
Education is also a major beneficiary of Bayanihan 2, including the provision of subsidies for educational institutions, teachers and students and funds to procure digital tools for online learning.
HB 6953 also covers assistance for local government units, overseas Filipino workers, national athletes and coaches and individuals in crisis situations.
Villafuerte said the next step after the enactment of Bayanihan 2 is to “work closely with the government to raise revenues” so it could sufficiently bankroll the Covid-19 response.
The lawmaker describes Bayanihan 2 as a “stop-gap measure,” as he considers it inadequate to prepare the economy for recovery.
Bayanihan 1
House Deputy Minority leader and Bayan Muna Rep. Carlos Isagani Zarate on Sunday urged the national government to fully disclose how it has spent the P3.7 trillion of the 2020 national budget before it can be trusted to spend the P162 billion under the proposed Bayanihan 2 of the House of Representatives.
“Bayanihan 2 was being mislabeled as a ‘recovery’ fund although Filipinos have not even ‘healed’ under the first Bayanihan Act, as found by our own research,” the Davao-based solon said.
“Bayanihan 2 still does not guarantee full funding for free mass testing to all vulnerable members of our population, especially our frontline health-care workers and those who got in contact with people positive [with] Covid-19,” Zarate said. “Until now, the government has not yet put in place an effective contact tracing strategy, and our entire health-care system is on the brink of collapse. So why enact another version of a law when the first one has not been fully used or utilized for its intended purposes?”
Feel confident
IN a statement over the weekend, Drilon suggested that the Duterte administration “take a look at strategies” to arrest the increasing Covid-19 cases, warning that the rising number “shatters people’s confidence.”
“The people’s confidence is shattered and the corruption and incompetence issues against government officials playing a key role in the fight against Covid-19 pandemic make things even worse,” Drilon said.
The lawmaker pointed out that the “key is to revive demand but that will only happen when the people feel safe to go out.”
“People will feel confident when they see that the government is doing the right thing, effective measures are in place and the health-care system is not collapsing,” Drilon added. “Thus, it all boils down to our ability to control the pandemic.”