Guidelines set for donations for PH’s Covid-19 response

FILE: Philippine Airline Ground Support Solution, Inc. (PAGSS) workers arrange the aid donation boxes provided by China to the Philippines on Saturday (March 20, 2020) at its office in Parañaque City. (PNA photo by Robert Oswald P. Alfiler)

MANILA – The Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of the Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) has imposed new guidelines with regard to donations that will help the Philippines step up its fight against coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19).

In a Palace press briefing on Wednesday, Cabinet Secretary Karlos Nograles said the IATF-EID has designated the Office of Civil Defense (OCD) as the main coordinating body for all domestic donations that will be used for the management of Covid-19.

“The OCD is authorized to receive all domestic financial donations which shall thereafter deposit the same to the Bureau of Treasury,” he said.

Nograles said a government agency that will be a recipient of the donations needs to submit a request to the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) to get access to the donated funds.

He added that government agencies that will likewise receive donations in kind are directed to make a report to OCD.

“The Presidential Communications Operations Office is hereby tasked to make the necessary communications to this effect,” Nograles said.

Meantime, international financial donations would be evaluated and decided on by a technical working group that will be comprised of the OCD, DBM, Department of Foreign Affairs, Department of Finance, and Department of the Interior and Local Government, Nograles noted.

President Rodrigo Duterte has placed the entire Philippines under a state of public health emergency and a state of calamity to arrest the spread of Covid-19.

An enhanced community quarantine has also been imposed in Luzon, home to over 53 million Filipinos, as the most number of confirmed Covid-19 cases came from the island.

Duterte also signed on Tuesday Republic Act 11469 or the “Bayanihan to Heal as One Act,” which gives him special powers to combat Covid-19.

As of Wednesday, there around 636 Covid-19 patients in the Philippines.