MANILA, Philippines — The House committee on appropriations on Tuesday approved a P1.6-billion budget to bolster the country's response to the worsening novel coronavirus (COVID-19) scare.
This comes after lawmakers of the lower chamber approved the unanimous passage of the yet to
be numbered bill allocating the funds from the National Treasury to the Department of Health.
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At the bill's hearing, though, Health Undersecretary
Roger Tong-an said that the department needed
a total of P3.1 billion to address the threat of COVID-19, almost double the actual amount approved for them.
Of this amount, he said, P2.35 billion would go into the procurement of protective equipment,
P933 million would be allocated for the Bureau of Quarantine and P139 million would go to tests conducted by the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM).
A string of new cases have been confirmed in the country as the Department of Health (DOH) acknowledged local transmission of the new virus after
the first three patients were only listed as imported cases.
On Monday, the number of confirmed cases doubled from 10 to 20, eventually hitting 24 after President Rodrigo Duterte disclosed the new count in a speech that night.
READ: Duterte signs proclamation declaring state of public emergency
That same day, the president signed a proclamation declaring a state of public health emergency in the country to facilitate the mobilization of resources, the intensifying of quarantine measures and ease of processes.
According to Tong-
an,
the budget could be outsourced from other agencies. He mentioned that the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office had expressed their intent to afford the department around P420 million while the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation
would be able to fund P2 billion.