P1.5-T House bill filed to restart economy, create jobs post-COVID-19

Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano and eight other lawmakers have filed a measure setting aside a three-year, P1.5-trillion stimulus program anchored on infrastructure projects with the aim of kick-starting the country's economy and create jobs in the wake of the COVID-19 health crisis.

House Bill 6709, or the proposed "COVID-19 Unemployment Reduction Economic Stimulus (CURES) Act," primarily seeks to raise government spending on the areas of health, education, agriculture, local roads infrastructure and livelihood (HEAL) "towards maximizing the direct and indirect creation and preservation of jobs, particularly in the rural countryside."

Under the measure, a special outlay to be called the CURES Fund equivalent to P1.5 trillion would be released over a period of three years to fund the infrastructure projects under the HEAL priority areas.

An initial P500 billion would be released in the first year, followed by another P500 billion in the second year and another P500 billion in the third year.

The CURES Fund would be used for various projects ranging from barangay health centers and municipal and city hospitals to digital equipment for testing, “telehealth” services and e-prescriptions to post-harvest facilities, bagsakan centers and food terminals.

The said fund may also be used to implement other infrastructure projects such as walking or bicycle lanes, bridges across creeks and irrigation canals, evacuation centers and disaster emergency facilities, and roads going to tourist spots, beaches, mountain parks,  new business districts or economic zones, and hubs for small and medium-sized enterprises.

Funding for priority projects would be based on "the actual need of chosen localities, number of locally-sourced jobs to be created or sustained after the construction work, and the potentials for forward and backward linkages with local businesses, suppliers and traders, small and medium-sized enterprises, and skilled and unskilled workforces." 

The bill specifically pointed out that no project would be approved for implementation using the CURES fund "unless the proponent can demonstrate that said projects are shovel ready and/or actual work on the same can realistically commence within a period of 90 working days from the release of the Special Allotment Release Order from the DBM.”

A Joint Congressional Oversight Committee would likewise be created to monitor the implementation of the measure once it is enacted into law.

“In the face of a global recession and unemployment among the workforce, it is incumbent upon the government to establish both palliative and curative interventions that would simultaneously support the Filipino worker in the immediate term while laying out the foundations for a more resilient and sustainable future,” the authors said in the explanatory note of the measure.

“Although palliative measures such as cash transfers, unemployment dole-outs, relief and other forms of immediate support are undoubtedly necessary at the moment, it is in the interest of both the government, the private sector, and the Filipino people at large that a lasting cure for economic resilience be established," they added.

Other proponents of the measure include Deputy Speakers Luis Raymund Villafurte, Paolo Duterte and Loren Legarda, Majority Leader Martin Romualdez, ACT CIS party-list Representative Eric Yap, Taguig Representative Lani Cayetano, Anakalusugan party-list Michael Defensor, and Bulacan Representative Jose Antonio Sy-Alvarado. — BM, GMA News