FINANCE SECRETARY Carlos G. Dominguez III said contingency measures to deal with the eruption of the Taal Volcano and the coronavirus outbreak likely boosted government spending by around 25% year-on-year.

“According to Lea (National Treasurer Rosalia V. de Leon), our national treasurer, we are already up for the first one and a half months, we already up 25% over last year. That’s pretty good,” Mr. Dominguez told reporters Tuesday.

Mr. Dominguez said tweaks to monetary policy will be an appropriate tool in responding to the broader impact of the coronavirus, formally known as Covid-19, based on his discussions with Benjamin E. Diokno, the central bank governor.

The eruption of Taal Volcano in January forced nearby businesses to suspend operations until the ashfall subsided while the outbreak of Covid-19 has affected the tourism industry while disrupting supply chains and dampened overall spending.

The tax take may also suffer during these months, with the government’s two largest tax-collecting agencies detecting weak sales by businesses and a 50% drop in trade volume in the first 15 days of February.

Mr. Dominguez said economic managers are “concerned” about the declines but remain confident that the government will meet its P3.3-trillion revenue collection target for 2020.

He has said the economic impact of the two events is not enough to force the economic team to revise its 6.5-7.5% growth target for the year.

The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) estimates that 51.8% of the 2020 budget was released in the first month of the year, equivalent to P2.124 trillion out of the P4.1-trillion spending plan.

Some P1.826 trillion in allotment releases was disbursed to line departments, accounting for 76.6% of the programmed P2.382 billion for the year.

A total of P66.982 billion was also released for special-purpose funds last month, out of the P467.898-bilion budgeted for the year. These are allocations for specific socio-economic purposes, such as the budgetary assistance to state firms and allocations for local governments, the contingent fund, the miscellaneous personnel benefits fund, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management fund, as well as the pension and gratuity fund.

From automatic appropriations, P231.581 billion has been released, or 18.5% of the P1.249-trillion program for the year.

The bulk of the automatic appropriations went to internal revenue allotments (IRAs) for local governments (P162.23 billion), retirement and life insurance premiums (P49.28 billion) and the block grant for the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (P15.9 billion).

Releases from the continuing appropriations of last year’s budget stood at P2.964 billion, P1.776 billion of which went to the line departments while P1.188 billion was released to special-purpose funds. — Beatrice M. Laforga

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