Palace eyes supplemental budget to fund cash aid in ECQ areas

MANILA – Malacañang may ask for a supplemental budget from Congress should the national government need additional funds to implement its cash aid program for households in areas placed under tougher lockdowns.

Citing Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III, Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said the government will use dividends paid to the Bureau of Treasury by government-owned and controlled corporations (GOCCs) to cover the PHP12-billion cash aid.

“Kung walang budget for ayuda, hahanap naman po tayo. At ngayon po, may sinabi na nga po si Secretary Dominguez ng ating Department of Finance dun sa mga dibidendo ng mga GOCCs natin kunin. Kung hindi pa yun po sapat, nandiyan din yung savings. Kung hindi pa sapat, di kukuha tayo ng supplemental budget galing sa Kongreso (We will look for funding sources for cash aid. Now, Secretary Dominguez said our funding source will be the dividends of GOCCs. If that won’t be enough, we have savings. If it is still not enough, we will ask for a supplemental budget from Congress),” he said in a Palace press briefing.

Roque admitted that the government may have to look for more funding sources should the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) place Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal, and Quezon (Calabarzon) region under the most restrictive enhanced community quarantine (ECQ).

The provinces of Cavite and Rizal, and the city of Lucena are currently under general community quarantine (GCQ) “with heightened restrictions”, while Batangas and Quezon are under the laxer GCQ and Laguna is under second stricter modified ECQ status.

However, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said the IATF has yet to decide on whether to raise the quarantine status in Calabarzon to ECQ following an uptick in the number of cases in the region.

“It’s not an issue of mayroon bang pondo, kung hindi maghahanap ng pondo. Kasi mandato ng Presidente, huwag mag-ECQ na walang ayuda (It’s not an issue if we have funds, but we will look for funds. Because the mandate of the President is not to place an area under ECQ if they cannot receive cash aid),” Roque said.

He assured that the government will look for more funding sources should Calabarzon also shift to a higher quarantine classification.

“Hindi naman po tayo mauubusan ng pondo, ‘yan lang po ang assurance natin sa taongbayan (We will not run out of funds, that is our assurance to the people),” he said.

Roque explained that the government did not want to make any promises it could not keep.

“Iniiwasan din natin na mangako sa taongbayan na wala naman tayong pagkukunan ng pondo. Puwede ka ngang gumawa ng supplemental budget, puwede ka mangako ng ayuda, kung wala ka naman pagkukunan, e saan po kukunin (We are trying to avoid making promises when there is no source of funding. You can make a supplemental budget, you make promises to distribute cash aid, but if you don’t have a source of funding, where are we going to get money)?” he said.

He also defended the government’s so-called “conservatism” in terms of spending and securing loans to fund its Covid-19 response, saying there is no way to find out how long the pandemic would last.

“Hindi naman po puwede lahat inuutang lang dahil eventually babayaran po ‘yan at ang ginagawa nga po ng ating economic team hinay-hinay ang pangutang dahil hindi natin alam kung gaano katagal itong pandemyang ito (We cannot just rely on loans because eventually we will pay for it and what our economic team has been doing is slow down borrowing because we don’t know how this pandemic will last),” he said.

Qualified beneficiaries in areas under ECQ will be receiving PHP1,000 per person or a maximum of PHP4,000 per family under the government’s subsidy program.

The funding sources for areas placed under ECQ like Metro Manila have been identified through Duterte’s Administrative Order (AO) 41 inked on May 4.

Meanwhile, Roque expressed hope that ramping up the country’s Covid-19 vaccination drive would prevent another lockdown from happening in the future.

“Huwag po kayo mag-alala dahil hindi naman po forever ganito ang buhay natin dahil yung bakuna nga po, ‘yan po ang susi sa pagbabalik-buhay natin (Don’t worry because our lives won’t be like this forever because vaccines are the key to returning to normalcy),” he said.