Lagman questions government funding for COVID-19 measures

MANILA, Philippines — Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman has questioned the “meager” P165-billion stimulus fund under the proposed Bayanihan to Recover as One Act or Bayanihan 2 Law that the President is expected to sign this week.

In an interview with “The Chiefs” on One News/TV5 on Monday night, Lagman said the amount was too small considering the billions in loans and grants received from foreign organizations.

“That relief package is so meager. It’s pathetic because P166 billion is so small to have a credible response to the pandemic. We are number one in Southeast Asia in terms of the number of COVID cases,” Lagman said.

“We should give more to socio-economic relief, displaced workers, frontliners and treatment of patients, conducting of mass testing and also appropriation for the procurement of vaccines,” he explained.

He said Malacañang should instead support the P1.3-trillion Accelerated Recovery and Investments Stimulus for the Economy Act (ARISE) to effectively address the pandemic.

“We already passed the ARISE bill in Congress, but Senate did not pass it because it was influenced by the secretary of finance,” Lagman said.

The lawmaker rejected the Palace claim that the government does not have enough fund to enact the measure.

“The fact is we have sufficient funds because we were able to get grants and loans from multilaterals such as Asian Development Bank, World Bank and International Investment and Infrastructure Bank,” he said.

Lagman cited the recent pronouncement of Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Governor Benjamin Diokno that foreign borrowings and grant assistance secured by the government for its COVID-19 measures and to finance various projects have reached $8.2 billion or about P410 billion as of last June.

He said Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez also disclosed that the World Bank would approve financing for another $1.9 billion or about P95 billion in projects for the country before yearend to help the economy recover from the recession caused by the pandemic.

“Are these foreign and domestic borrowings also under lockdown? Or are they reserved for some partisan enterprise?” Lagman asked.

“We have contracted so much internal and external debt for our COVID response. It is bad enough that we will let our children and grandchildren be burdened by the principal and interest debt service payments that the loans entail. It will definitely be worse if they realize that they are shouldering payments for loans that were of little or no use to their parents and grandparents,” he added.

Apart from released and committed foreign grants and loans, Lagman said the Bureau of National Treasury announced that it has raised P1.2 trillion as of June 30.

In addition, auctions for the Retail Treasury Bonds raised P516.3 billion early this month and more funds are expected to be generated from new auctions scheduled.

“Domestic borrowings amounting to more than P1 trillion raised by the Bureau of the Treasury have not been used as funding sources for Bayanihan 2,” Lagman said.

The budget department has released P376 billion for COVID-19 response as of Aug. 10. Lagman said this means there should still be P1.468 trillion available for the government’s pandemic response programs.