SEN. Francis Pangilinan on Wednesday pushed the Department of Agriculture to speed up the distribution of the government’s Financial Subsidy to Rice Farmers (FSRF) affected by the extended enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) by decentralizing disbursement from the Land Bank of the Philippines.
“The disbursement of the FSRF has been painfully slow because it is still centralized with Land Bank. The Bayanihan Law was passed with so much urgency precisely to fast-track help to those who need it most,” Pangilinan said.
Pangilinan cited data from the President’s fifth Bayanihan Act report submitted to Congress last Monday which showed that the Department of Agriculture’s FSRF reached only 53,881 (or 9.11 percent) out of 591,246 targeted farmers, and only P645 million of the FSRF’s P3 billion budget has been utilized.
To overcome the long process of printing cash cards and Land Bank’s limited banking hours and branches, Pangilinan suggested that government use third party partners like the Development Bank of the Philippines, countryside financial institutions, cooperatives, telecommunications companies, remittance centers, rural banks-managed ATMs, and other similar entities.
“The use of other disbursement options is already allowed under the Bayanihan Law,” said Pangilinan, citing Section 4 of the law that Congress passed in a special session and gave the President special powers to realign the budget to fund government’s response measures against COVID-19.
DISPLACED WORKERS
The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) said the number of formal sector workers so far displaced by the ECQ has swollen to 2.3 million.
Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III said, “As of April 28, some 87,301 establishments reported that over 1.6 million of their workers were affected by temporary closures, while 797,729 were on alternative work arrangements due to the quarantine.”
Bello said that with the number of displaced workers continuously increasing, the agency has decided to realign P1.5 billion from its 2020 budget to the COVID-19 Adjustment Measures Program (CAMP) to allow DOLE to provide the one-time assistance of P5,000 to an additional 300,000 workers.
“With internally-sourced funds, DOLE will now be able to assist a total of about 650,000 workers with P3.24 billion in total CAMP assistance,” said Bello.
Last April 15, DOLE terminated the CAMP after its P1.7-billion budget was fully disbursed to 345,865 formal sector workers as beneficiaries.
CAMP is a one-time cash assistance program of DOLE to formal sector workers displaced by the imposition of the ECQ.
INFORMAL WORKERS
As for informal sector workers displaced by the lockdown, the DOLE said those who were unable to avail of the emergency employment program can just look forward to May.
This, according to Bello, is because the regular Tulong Panghanapbuhay sa Displaced/Disadvantaged Workers (TUPAD) program will resume next month but only in areas outside of the ECQ.
“The program will utilize a separate P1 billion realigned regular funds of the DOLE,” said Bello.
The DOLE also terminated the TUPAD Barangay Ko Bahay Ko (TUPAD BKBK) last April 15 after its P1.14-billion allocation was used up for the wages of 275,000 beneficiaries.
TUPAD BKBK is a program that provides emergency employment for displaced, underemployed, and seasonal workers in the informal economy, during the COVID-19 outbreak.
OFW AID
Bello reported different Philippine Overseas Labor Offices (POLOs) and regional offices of the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) have received 297,000 applications for financial assistance for overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) displaced by the pandemic.
Of the total applicants, DOLE has granted cash aid to only some 70,000 affected OFWs. “Close to 50 percent of the targeted beneficiaries have now been provided with the P10,000 cash assistance,” said Bello.
The DOLE-AKAP for OFWs program targets a total 150,000 beneficiaries for its P1.5 billion fund. — With Gerard Naval
