The interagency Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC) is set to meet today to review its macroeconomic assumptions to take into consideration recent developments, including the imposition of tighter lockdowns amid the threat brought by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) Delta variant.
“We are having another meeting with the DBCC (today) to determine what the future seems to look like, given this lockdown episode we had,” Carlos Dominguez, Department of Finance secretary, told reporters in a virtual briefing yesterday.
“We will review all our macroeconomic assumptions and projections depending on the GDP (gross domestic product) numbers, and now on this lockdown that happened,” he added.
During its meeting last July 19, the DBCC reaffirmed the GDP growth target of six to seven percent this year, seven to nine percent in 2022, and six to seven percent in 2023 and 2024.
In the first semester, the economy expanded by 3.7 percent, following the recently reported 11.8 percent posted in the second quarter.
The economy will have to grow by 8.2 percent to 10.1 percent in the second half of the year to meet the government’s growth target for 2021.
However, COVID-19 cases have been significantly increasing in recent weeks amid the threat of the much more virulent Delta variant.
This led to the government imposing stricter quarantine measures to reduce the spread of the virus. The National Capital Region (NCR) has been placed under enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) from August 6 to 20.
While the lockdown is meant to arrest the spread of the variant, it also has an adverse impact on the economy.
The National Economic and Development Authority earlier said that based on latest estimates, each week of ECQ in NCR will cost the economy P105 billion, while it will also increase poor people by up to 177,000 and 444,000 more without jobs.
“We are facing a crisis unlike any other we have faced before. We have a virus that is mutating. And the mutations are quite severe so far in the new variants. So I cannot predict what will happen in the future,” Dominguez said.
“Our first defense is the vaccinations. And our vaccination program is proceeding as originally announced,” he added.
Dominguez said the Philippines has received around 42.6 million vaccines so far, from March to August 15, while 27.8 million doses have been administered.
“Now, unfortunately, the COVID-19 virus is not standing still. If it were standing still we can beat him to death. But it’s not, they’re evolving, mutating. So I cannot predict what new form will come up, but rest assured that we are ready to meet it with our first line of defense,” Dominguez said.
“We have also been investing heavily in our healthcare. So that seems to be the only logical way we can approach this now. The government is doing everything it can.
Fortunately, we passed the tax reform bills early, which were meant to reduce poverty, which were meant to use the money to invest in infrastructure, etc. And that has been a very good buffer for us. Had we not done that, I do not know where we would be now financially,” he added.
