US fund agency evaluating Philippine aid

MANILA, Philippines – A US-led funding agency is set to evaluate the Philippines’ eligibility by December for a second five-year grant that will inevitably be implemented under the term of President Duterte.

The Millennium Challenge Corp. (MCC) will come out with a decision whether the country could secure additional funding that will follow through the $434-million aid it gave in 2011.

“The MCC Board initially selected the Philippines as eligible to develop a second compact in December 2014. Like all countries..., MCC’s Board must re-select the Philippines each year during compact development for the process to continue,” the US Embassy said in an e-mail.

“As a result, in December, MCC’s Board will indeed, once again, evaluate the Philippines for continued eligibility,” it added.

Pending evaluation, however, work remains ongoing on identifying specific projects to be financed by the grant. It usually takes two and a half years to develop a program.

For now, the embassy only said based on its analysis, the grant would likely fund projects that would “address agricultural productivity and competitiveness,” without giving details.

According to MCC, eligibility evaluation would focus on a “country scorecard” gauging the donee’s economic freedom, investment on people, and rule of law.

Separate metrics under each of the three categories were provided, including fiscal and trade performance, health and primary education expenditures, protection of political rights, civil liberties and freedom of information.

Once approved, the second compact will be implemented under President Duterte, who has criticized the US on several public occasions. 

On its first compact, MCC financed three programs worth $434 million. The bulk of the amount worth $262 million went to the Secondary National Roads Development Project that aimed to improve market access for fishers and farmers.

A total of $120 million went to the Kalahi-CIDSS project for poor communities of the Department of Social Welfare and Development. The balance of $54.3 million was given to the Bureau of Internal Revenue for its revenue automation project.