Lawmakers dismayed at NEDA for shooting down ARISE bill

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A HOUSE leader yesterday urged the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) not to shut the doors on the bill providing for a P1.3 trillion economic stimulus package to help jump-start the economy in the wake of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.

Deputy majority leader Bernadette Herrera of Bagong Henerasyon (BH) party-list said she and many of her colleagues were dismayed after NEDA acting secretary Karl Kendrick Chua immediately shot down House Bill No. 6815, or the Accelerated Recovery and Investments Stimulus for the Economy (ARISE) bill, for lack of funding.

“I know where my colleagues in the House are coming from because I myself was quite dismayed when I first heard the statement from NEDA,” Herrera said.

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The NEDA statement did not sit well among lawmakers, especially to the authors who tirelessly fought for the bill and have it approved before Congress adjourned sine die on June 4.

Chua has said the measure cannot be funded “because any supplemental budget or standby appropriation would require new revenue sources and that is very limited.”

Herrera said the House leadership and the NEDA have to sit down to try to find a common ground to save the measure to help the country cope with the COVID-19 crisis.

“I realized we need to come to terms with the economic managers in order to make sure this highly important and urgent measure will be funded and fully implemented,” said the lawmaker, adding: “After all, we are all for a doable and more inclusive stimulus plan that could help the economy recover from the devastating impact of the coronavirus pandemic.”

The party-list lawmaker warned that if the ARISE bill will not be funded, many companies will close permanently and a lot of people will become jobless in the absence of an “all-inclusive” economic stimulus package.

Deputy speaker Sharon Garin of AAMBIS-OWA party-list, who is also the co-chair of the subcommittee on economic response package cluster of Defeat COVID-19 committee, cited the urgency to help the people who have lost their jobs when most provinces and cities in the country were under enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) through the implementation of transitional interventions.

These are workers in non-essential businesses, the self-employed, the freelancers and OFWs who will be given a maximum subsidy of P15,000 per month for two months under the bill’s P110 billion subsidy program.

Albay Rep. Joey Salceda, chair of the House committee on ways and means, said funding sources will come from the Department of Finance (DOF) through the Bureau of Treasury, government financial institutions and government-owned corporations (GOCCs) as well as bonds.

The ARISE bill seeks to protect and assist up to 15.7 million workers and create 3 million short-term jobs over the period of three years, and help up to 5.57 million workers at micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs).

For this year, the spending plan includes assistance to various sectors such as MSMEs (P10 billion), tourism (P58 billion), industry and services (P44 billion), transportation (P70 billion), agri-fisheries (P66 billion), and funding for the National Emergency Investment Vehicle (P25 billion) to “minimize permanent damage to the economy.”

The measure likewise authorizes the government to respond to the needs of the workers in non-essential businesses, freelancers, repatriated OFWs and self-employed workers who may have been left out in the Department of Social Welfare and Development’s Social Amelioration Program and the Department of Finance’s Small Business Wage Subsidy (SBWS) program.

The measure also proposes the creation of 1.5 million jobs through infrastructure projects and protects 5.57 million MSMEs by helping their troubled companies.

The bill also seeks to allocate P20 billion for the Department of Health’s mass testing program, or P10 billion each this year and next year to boost consumer and business confidence.

ARISE authorizes the President to realign within six months items in this year’s national budget that cannot be utilized due to COVID such as travel and forced savings, and extends the validity of the 2019 and 2020 General Appropriations Acts until 2021.

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