MANILA, Philippines — A P405.6-billion pandemic relief bill is now on its way to the plenary floor of House of Representatives for deliberations, as lawmakers seek to blunt the economic pain caused by fresh lockdowns triggered by an unexpected flare-up of infections.
Lawmakers at the House committee on appropriation approved Friday the proposed Bayanihan to Arise as One Act or Bayanihan 3. Prior to this, the measure had cleared the committees on economic affairs and ways and means.
House Speaker Lord Allan Velasco himself is among the authors of the bill. Once enacted into law, the bill would provide funds for coronavirus programs, including the dual-tranche distribution of P2,000 cash aid to each Filipino, regardless of social status. The measure would also provide wage subsidies amounting to P20 billion for those who lost their jobs due to renewed lockdowns.
The proposal comes in the face of the Duterte administration’s hesitation to unleash outsized stimulus packages over fears of incurring wide budget deficits that may trigger a credit rating downgrade. Earlier this week, Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III admitted that the state’s fiscal gap is already ballooning at “concerning” rate.
As it is, the amount that lawmakers want for Bayanihan 3 is higher than the P170-billion additional spending that economic managers are pushing to finance a much-needed rescue package. “This is what our constituents want,” AAMBIS-OWA Rep. Sharon Garin, one of the authors of Bayanihan 3, said during Friday’s committee hearing.
But proposing a new spending bill is one thing and finding actual cash to fund it is another. Already, Dominguez made it clear that any new stimulus bills must be “revenue neutral”, meaning any additional costs should have a counterpart revenue source.
“Our concern really is that at this point we want to really focus and our available resources both in the cash that we have and the appropriation that we currently have on achieving faster vaccination for the entire country because I think the economy can recover faster if everybody is assured that they are protected against the virus,” Finance Assistant Secretary Teresa Habitan told lawmakers.
At the same time, the Constitution provides that all budget bills require a certification from the Bureau of the Treasury that there are enough funds for them. Garin said the authors of Bayanihan 3 are aware of this, that’s why the current version of the bill identified some spending items as “standby funds”, meaning the appropriation will only be triggered when funds are finally available.
Specifically, Garin said they want the first tranche of cash aid to have certification from the Treasury since people “immediately” need the assistance. For the second round of payouts, the lawmaker said it can be considered as “standby” funds.
“Really I would like to appeal to our economic managers that since the law does not provide naman na kailangan ngayon na may certification like what we did with Bayanihan 2, we can arrive at a certain number in which both legislative and executive are comfortable,” Garin said.
For his part, Treasury Director Dominick Mariano assured lawmakers that the bureau “has always been ready” to certify the availability of funds.
“We are still looking at the revenue performance compared to the disbursements schedule that we have for the year… We are also looking at the fiscal sustainability of the measures and we’re also looking at, of course, maintaining a certain threshold of deficit and not incurring any or further adding to our debt burden,” Mariano said.