{"id":140888,"date":"2017-12-20T21:26:13","date_gmt":"2017-12-21T02:26:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=140888"},"modified":"2017-12-20T21:26:13","modified_gmt":"2017-12-21T02:26:13","slug":"diokno-on-withdrawal-for-2nd-mcc-grant-we-want-policy-independence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2017\/12\/20\/diokno-on-withdrawal-for-2nd-mcc-grant-we-want-policy-independence\/","title":{"rendered":"Diokno on withdrawal for 2nd MCC grant: We want policy independence"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_111239\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-111239\" style=\"width: 415px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Diokno-edited.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-111239\" src=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Diokno-edited.jpg\" alt=\"Diokno (PNA photo by Avito C. Dalan)\" width=\"415\" height=\"260\" srcset=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Diokno-edited.jpg 415w, https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Diokno-edited-300x188.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 415px) 100vw, 415px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-111239\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Diokno (PNA photo by Avito C. Dalan)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>MANILA \u2014 The Philippines withdrew its\u00a0 application for second assistance from the Millennium Challenge Corp. (MCC) for policy independence.<\/p>\n<p>Budget and Management Secretary Benjamin Diokno, in a briefing Wednesday, stressed this as he said President Rodrigo R. Duterte wants to implement projects under this term without any external intervention.<\/p>\n<p>He said funding offers from donors should be given \u201cout of the goodness of your heart\u201d without any consequence.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cKung gusto mong magbigay, magbigay ka out of the goodness of your heart pero \u2018wag kami paki-alamanan. (If you want to help give it out of the goodness of your heart but don\u2019t meddle with us),\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Diokno said the Philippine government even returned funds such as those given by the European Union (EU) to ensure that implementation of projects under the Duterte government would not be hampered by rules set by any organization.<\/p>\n<p>He stressed that not getting the MCC grant is not a loss for the Philippine government because the country continues to receive funding offers from various countries like Japan, China and South Korea.<\/p>\n<p>He said these countries even compete to fund projects under the Duterte administration because of the positive economic outlook of the country.<\/p>\n<p>Amid the Philippine government\u2019s withdrawal for an MCC grant, the Budget chief said being considered as a possible beneficiary for a grant from the independent US government agency is already a plus.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe should be happy with that,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>MCC, in a statement issued on Dec. 19, 2017 after the meeting of its Board, said the Philippine government\u2019s decision to withdraw its application for a second compact grant is a positive development.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMCC is proud of the achievements of our first compact with the Philippines, and both MCC and the United States are proud of our longstanding positive relationship,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n<p>MCC\u2019s initial grant to the Philippines amounted to PHP434 million and was implemented in May 2011 until May 2016. (PNA)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MANILA \u2014 The Philippines withdrew its\u00a0 application for second assistance from the Millennium Challenge Corp. (MCC) for policy independence. Budget &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":111239,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[28483,39939],"class_list":["post-140888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-budget-and-management-secretary-benjamin-diokno","tag-millennium-challenge-corp-mcc","mauthors-joann-villanueva","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140888"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140888\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}