FINANCE CHIEF: GOV’T CAN BANKROLL WAR ON COVID-19
While the government could not give away more doles despite the second most stringent level of quarantine in effect in areas accounting for half of the economy until April 30, Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III said on Sunday that they have the means to bankroll the protracted medical fight against COVID-19.
“We have the finances necessary to provide for all the medical requirements,” Dominguez stressed, adding that the money would come from the P4.51-trillion 2021 na
tional budget.
“We have the budget and the funds to implement the budget,” he said.
According to earlier estimates of the state planning agency National Economic and Development Authority (Neda), two weeks of modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ) in Metro Manila and surrounding areas would cost P2.1 billion in income losses per day.
More hungry Filipinos
A two-week MECQ would also add 58,000 more hungry Filipinos and 128,500 to the unemployed.
It would nonetheless prevent as many as 266,194 new COVID-19 infections, of which 11,626 cases could be critical or severe. Two weeks of MECQ would also avert 4,738 additional deaths due to COVID-19.
The strictest enhanced community quarantine in place during the two preceding weeks in the so-called National Capital Region Plus, meanwhile, likely left about 252,000 Filipinos jobless while 102,000 possibly slid to poverty, Neda estimates released last week showed.
The one-week lockdown extension after Holy Week nevertheless was expected to have had averted 215,320 new COVID-19 cases, including 6,460, which could be severe and critical. About 4,026 deaths were likely prevented by the tighter quarantine, which also covered the provinces of Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna and Rizal, according to Neda.