Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, April 19) — Congress is awaiting President Rodrigo Duterte’s fourth weekly report on the additional powers it granted him to address the COVID-19 crisis.
Among the items expected in the new report: updates on cash aid distribution to poor families, the utilization of funds, and Duterte’s use of his additional power to realign funding within the executive branch towards the government’s COVID-19 response.
In his last report to Congress, Duterte bared that the government has so far released ₱132.3-billion from savings for its response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
A bulk of the funding went to the Social Welfare Department, which received ₱100 billion to fund cash aid to some 18 million indigent families to cushion the impact of quarantine measures being implemented to curb the spread of the virus.
Cities and municipalities got the second-largest chunk of the funding, with them getting a total of ₱30.8 billion from the government as a grant to augment their response to COVID-19.
The Labor Department, which is assisting workers displaced by quarantine measures, also received ₱1.5 billion in cash allocations.
All these were sourced from discontinued programs, activities and projects, and abandoned special purpose funds amounting to ₱189.82 billion.
The law, which granted Duterte special powers, also requires him to report to Congress every week on the government’s COVID-19 response.
