The House of Representatives on Tuesday night approved on second reading the Bayanihan to Arise as One bill or the Bayanihan 3, which contains a P401 billion stimulus package to provide more aid to Filipinos during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The chamber approved through voice voting House Bill 9411, which has 293 out of 300 lawmakers or 98 percent of members of the House signing up as co-authors.
The proposed Bayanihan 3 is divided into three phases, with a budget breakdown of P165.9 billion for Phase 1, P186 billion for Phase 2, and P48.6 for Phase 3.
Under the bill, two rounds of financial aid worth P1,000 will be granted to each Filipino.
The cash subsidy program will have a total funding of P216 billion.
Pandemic-affected households will receive a one-time cash subsidy worth P5,000 to P10,000 to be implemented by the Department of Social Welfare and Development.
The bill also offers wage subsidies, assistance to displaced workers, assistance to the agri-fishery sector and cooperatives, medical assistance to indigents, local government support fund, and support for basic education.
It states that the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas may make additional advances, with or without interest, to the national government of up to 10 percent of the average income of the government for fiscal years 2018 to 2020 to finance expenditures authorized by law to address the pandemic.
Mandatory dividend remittances by government-owned and -controlled corporations (GOCCs) will also be increased from 50 percent to 75 percent, while the President will have the power to withdraw capital from overcapitalized GOCCs.
“There is a rush to finish this because the people need it,” party-list Rep. Sharon Garin said, referring to Bayanihan 3.
Now authored by almost all 300 House lawmakers led by Speaker Lord Allan Velasco, Bayanihan 3 is considered a lifeline for the country’s economy which has been ravaged by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“This is the first time I’ve seen that one bill has two pages of authors, I think 297 or 298. That’s 99 percent of the members of the House,” Garin said at a news forum.
“That’s a huge statement from the House of Representatives. We want Bayanihan 3,” she said.
Albay Rep. Joey Sarte Salceda defended the need for universal basic income under the bill.
“We are introducing, for the first time in Philippine policy if enacted, the concept of Universal Basic Income. P1,000 per Filipino, one assured tranche, and one on standby. No ifs or buts. It avoids politicization. The rich can freely return it if they want; after all, there are very few rich people in this country. Almost everybody is hurting,” Salceda said.
Salceda recalled that he first proposed the idea in lieu of the Social Amelioration Program (SAP) in a lengthy memorandum to the President and to economic managers in May 2020.
“I recommended it because we did not have the database. So, it would have been easier to just list everyone we gave money to, instead of finding a list of people to give money to. It would have been fair, simple, and quick,” Salceda said.
Salceda added the measure would also be fairer to the poor “who tend to have bigger households. Assistance on a per-person basis is more equitable, because people eat on a per-person basis. It really is that basic.”
Earlier this year, Salceda also warned that the best way to ensure that the economy recovers quickly is “to protect household income as more than 70 percent of the Philippine economy is consumption-based.”
“As much as I would like to make us a more investment-driven economy, for now, consumption creates Filipino jobs. So, we need to pump-prime consumption. It allows people to create jobs in resilient and essential sectors, instead of us having to select winners and losers, and potentially feed dead horses,” Salceda said.
Salceda said the Bayanihan 3 bill is expected to hurdle the final reading approval at the House before the adjournment next month.
Taguig City Rep. Allan Peter Cayetano, meanwhile, appealed to the government to provide direct forms of assistance not only to individuals but to businesses as well to keep the economy running amid a pandemic.
Cayetano said the administration cannot simply wait for the vaccine rollout to be completed because the COVID-19 virus is evolving, and the government needs to get ahead of it by ensuring that businesses will continue to operate.
“If they don’t close down, the government will get taxes, employees will get paid. If they close down, the employees will become the government’s burden," Cayetano said of workers.
“Now businesses are as hard-hit as individuals. We have so many people who invested their hard-earned money — lifetime savings, what they earned from 30 years of working as overseas Filipino workers, and even taking out loans," he said.
Cayetano said he also hopes the next stimulus package “will really be transformative and will really listen to the businesses.”