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Philippines: No budget for ‘ayuda’, contact tracing in proposed 2022 outlay
MANILA, Philippines – No funds were set aside for cash aid and contact tracing in the Duterte administration’s last budget proposal.
During the Senate Committee on Finance’s first hearing on the proposed P5.024-trillion outlay for 2022, Budget Undersecretary Tina Marie Canda explained that funds were not appropriated for these items since forecasting how much and what the government would need next year was extremely difficult as the pandemic drags on.
On the lack of funds for hiring of contact tracers, Canda said the Department of the Interior and Local Government performs such a function, but “I think there is no budget for contact tracing for DILG next year.”
Amid a new threat posed by the highly contagious Delta variant, Canda then urged Congress, which holds the power of the purse, to make necessary adjustments to the proposed outlay as the country’s pandemic needs grow and change.
“The amount we allocated for the health sector plus the social services sector as a whole was based on the assumption that this was pre-Delta. So at that point the incidence of COVID-affected citizens was not that high,” Canda said.
“But we admit that, at this point, it may no longer be applicable to the current situation,” she added.
Under old rules, the government is expected to extend aid to people whenever enhanced community quarantine — the strictest lockdown there is — is enforced. This is because under an ECQ, some businesses are not allowed to operate to lessen people on going around, and thereby prevent the spread of infections.
In turn, while some of their employees may use their leaves to get paid while ECQ is in effect, some people will still be out of work, and therefore not earning. This is where government assistance should come in to moderate their hardships.
Similar to the proposed 2022 budget, the current outlay has no funds for cash aid in the event of hard lockdowns. When Metro Manila and some provinces briefly returned to ECQ last month, the government dipped into its “savings” to fund a P13.1-billion cash aid program for locked-down households.
According to Canda, no funds were earmarked for cash aid in next year’s budget because the government is avoiding making any lump-sum appropriations, wherein projects and agencies that will receive the money are not identified, thereby making it prone to corruption.
“We’d love to have it (cash aid)… but we cannot foresee how much would be required,” she said.
Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto then suggested that money for financial assistance be inserted to contingency funds, a type of special purpose fund, or SPF, allocated for specific socio-economic purposes. But Canda said it would be better to allocate funds for this purpose to the specific budgets of departments concerned.
“I think it would be best not to include it to any special purpose fund because when it becomes a part of it, it dilutes the importance of any initiative to increase the contribution or amount for that sector,” she said.
Source: https://www.philstar.com/business/2021/09/08/2125747/no-budget-ayuda-contact-tracing-proposed-2022-outlay