House Majority Leader and Leyte Rep. Martin Romualdez on Tuesday called for the people’s support for the initiatives taken by the administration to fight COVID-19, saying the menace can only be defeated through everyone’s cooperation.
He made the statement at the resumption of the Defeat COVID-19 Committee technical working group meeting of the economic stimulus package cluster.
Romualdez was one of the key leaders who led the recovery of Tacloban City and Region VIII from the onslaught of killer Typhoon “Yolanda” in 2013.
“If only we pool our resources together and get our acts together, there is no doubt we can survive and overcome the crisis that we face right now,” said Romualdez, co-chairman of the DCC.
Last week, the Sub-Committee on Economic Stimulus and Response Package, co-led by Rep. Joey Salceda of Albay, chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means, Rep. Sharon Garin of AAMBIS OWA, chairman of the House economic affairs committee, and Rep. Stella Luz Quimbo of Marikina City made economic response presentations and agreed to consolidate their proposals and the suggestions of the resource persons into a bill to be submitted to its mother committee, the DCC.
The meeting was also attended by Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Gov. Benjamin Diokno, Land Bank of the Philippines president Cecile Borromeo, and Social Security System president Aurora Cruz-Ignacio.
Romualdez, the chairman of the powerful House committee on rules, thanked Salceda, Garin, Quimbo and the economic team led by Dominguez for their proposals during the first TWG meeting that would ensure a resilient stimulus package to help President Rodrigo Duterte ease the economic effects of COVID-19.
He says the battle against COVID-19 is winnable if all the country’s leaders, sectors and Filipino people would stand together.
“But what struck me most in our previous discussion was the fact that our government does not lack the resources to weather the economic and financial storm looming in our horizon,” Romualdez said.
“Though we may need only a total of P700 billion in our survival period, we can raise P1 trillion to P1.5 trillion to implement programs and projects even for the transitional and structural stimulus phases of our proposed stimulus package.”
Cash relief
More than 4.5 million low-income households have received the cash relief granted by the national government to help them cope with the crisis caused by by the COVID-19 pandemic, Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles said Tuesday.
He said the government was able to distribute the emergency subsidies to some 4,597,854 poor families, or more than 25 percent of the 18-million target beneficiary-families of the Social Amelioration Program.
Nograles, spokesman of the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases, said the poor families who received the cash aid included the beneficiaries of the Department of Social Welfare and Development’s Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program.
Fund return
The Social Welfare department said Monday the local government units whose listed recipients of the Social Amelioration Program will not pass the validation process are obliged to return the fund to it.
Social Welfare Undersecretary for Special Concerns Camilo Gudmalin says the LGUs will have to refund the amount released to unqualified beneficiaries of the government’s emergency subsidy for low-income families who were heavily affected by the containment measures amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The agency will conduct a validation after the payouts,” Gudmalin said.
“The LGUs will submit all documents to see if those who received the fund are among the target beneficiaries.”
Ease the lockdown
Mindanao Development Authority Secretary Emmanuel Piñol has called on the areas in Mindanao with no registered cases of COVID-19 to ease their lockdown measures and prepare for the planting season.
In a Facebook post on Tuesday, Piñol said the strict total lockdown enforced by many local government units in Mindanao had become “ridiculous” and could jeopardize the island’s food production.
“Within provinces, even those without reports of probable and suspected COVIDE-19 cases enforce lockdowns, effectively preventing people from doing anything,” Piñol said.
He said the situation had virtually paralyzed food production and economic activities, making almost everybody dependent on food rations and cash aid.
Lockdown help
Senator Christopher Lawrence “Bong” Go has reminded national agencies and local government units to consider in their lists of beneficiaries the village workers who are qualified to receive assistance from the government’s social amelioration program amid the COVID-19 emergency.
Earlier, Go appealed to the national government agencies and LGUs to immediately provide assistance to barangay tanods, barangay health workers and day-care workers as recipients of the program.
He said barangay workers considered sub-minimum wage earners should not be disqualified from receiving the assistance.
Replication
With the national government set to replicate Valenzuela City’s inclusion of Persons Under Monitoring in mass-testing activities, Senator Win Gatchalian said Local Government Units will be better equipped in tracking down asymptomatic carriers of COVID-19 as this is crucial in containing the virus.
Asymptomatic carriers are those listed as Persons Under Monitoring in the old classification of COVID-19 cases.
They do not exhibit symptoms but have travel history to areas with issued travel restrictions and have been exposed to COVID-19 patients.
PUMs are no longer included in the new classification of COVID-19 cases.
But Gatchalian cited their mass-testing experience in Valenzuela City and said at least seven PUMs had turned out positive for the virus.
Intervention cited
Senator Grace Poe has underscored the need for government intervention for children in their first 1,000 days to spare them the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
“While our eyes are firmly focused on defeating the virus, we must not forget the babies and children who should be protected from hunger and malnutrition,” Poe said.
“In any crisis, the children are among the vulnerable who suffer disproportionately.”
Poe has pushed for essential relief assistance to families with pregnant mothers and children aged zero to 24 months.
