Palace: No ‘ayuda’ during GCQ bubble

MANILA, Philippines — The government does not need to provide aid or ayuda similar to the multibillion-peso package given during last year’s lockdown because people can still work despite the stricter measures currently in place to address the surge in COVID-19 cases, Malacañang said yesterday.

Some sectors are worried that the tighter safety measures the Duterte administration has imposed would disrupt the income of some businesses and workers, and urged the government to provide assistance to affected groups.

Labor groups Associated Labor Union (ALU), Partido ng Manggagawa (PM) and Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) yesterday sought cash assistance for workers as the government suspended the operations of some non-essential industries and imposed movement restrictions in Metro Manila, Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna and Rizal as a response to the soaring number of COVID-19 infections.

ALU spokesman Alan Tanjusay said workers need financial aid to cope with the ban on non-essential travel.

“We were expecting that the government announcement of additional restrictions would be followed by the announcement that affected workers would be provided with cash assistance and food packs,” he said, noting that workers and their families will find it difficult to comply with the additional restrictions without the cash aid coming from the government.

He added that “if the government won’t do that, widespread hunger would happen where workers and their families are caught up in the fierce struggle for survival.”

PM chair Renato Magtubo called on Congress to immediately pass the proposed Bayanihan 3 in order to provide cash assistance to workers as KMU chair Elmer Labog said the government has the responsibility to provide workers with cash assistance.

But presidential spokesman Harry Roque said agencies are continuously helping displaced workers, citing the labor department’s emergency employment program Tupad and the loans provided by state-run Small Business Corp. to small and medium enterprises.

“In terms of the assistance similar to the one we provided during ECQ (enhanced community quarantine), since we did not stop our countrymen from working, we do not have to extend such an aid because everybody can work,” he said at a press briefing.

Roque said the government did not close the economy and is just enforcing localized lockdowns so people can continue working, noting that “local governments that were subjected to localized and granular (lockdowns) are providing aid.”

About P98.79 billion in financial aid has been distributed to beneficiaries of the government’s social amelioration program, which aims to support sectors affected by pandemic-related lockdowns last year.

The nationwide program sought to help 17.7 million families by giving between P5,000 to P8,000 each. – Mayen Jaymalin