A BILL providing for a P1-trillion post-pandemic economic stimulus package was filed in the House Wednesday by Albay Representative Edcel C. Lagman.
House Bill 6693, which if passed will be known as the COVID-19 Response Act, proposes to set aside P164 billion for the Department of Social Welfare and Development for its social amelioration program.
It also proposes P82.26 billion worth of funding for wage subsidy and livelihood financial assistance to displaced workers to be implemented by the Department of Labor and Employment and P110.51 billion for the Department of Health’s COVID-19 containment efforts.
The bill also allots P100 billion to the Department of Trade and Industry for financial assistance to micro, small and medium enterprises, manufacturing enterprises, and export-oriented companies; P50 billion to the Department of Agriculture for financial assistance to farmers; and P71.61 billion for the Department of Tourism’s Tourism Recovery Program.
About P90.31 billion will be allotted to the Department of Transportation to support the aviation and maritime sectors; P200 billion to the Department of Public Works and Highways for the construction of health facilities and implementation of infrastructure projects; and P100 billion for assistance to local government units to be implemented by the Department of Interior and Local Government.
The measure also seeks to allocate about P4 billion to upskill workers through the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority’s programs.
Mr. Lagman said funding sources include measures to be implemented by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas; grants and concessional loans from the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank; government bond issues; the sale and privatization of government assets; and the extension of tax amnesty programs.
“In order to continue the various emergency assistance to the marginalized sectors as well as to the adversely affected members of the middle class, and to bail out businesses which are reeling from the onslaught of the evolving severest recession since the Great Depression, the enactment of this bill for continued emergency response and economic stimulus package is of critical immediacy,” he said in the bill’s explanatory note.
Marikina Rep. Stella Luz A. Quimbo and Albay Rep. Jose Maria Clemente S. Salceda earlier proposed their own versions of an economic stimulus bill which were consolidated into the proposed Philippine Economic Stimulus Act (PESA).
According to AAMBIS-OWA Party-List Rep. Sharon S. Garin, who co-chairs the House’s Defeat COVID-19 committee economic stimulus cluster, the latest draft of the PESA proposes about P475 billion in the first year of the intervention period of 2020-2022 and is currently pending at committee. — Genshen L. Espedido
