The Department of Finance (DOF) has sought the swift enactment by Congress of the proposed national budget for next year along with the economic priority measures to rebuild the economy and decisively defeat coronavirus.
During a briefing for the Senate finance committee, Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III said the timely enactment of the P4.506 trillion 2021 national budget is a key component of the government’s comprehensive program under its economic bounce-back plan.
On top of the budget, Dominguez also said that a "timely and decisive" passage of several economic priority measures are needed to accelerate economic recovery.
The priority measures, now pending in Congress, include the Financial Institutions’ Strategic Transfer (FIST) Act, and the Government Financial Institutions’ Unified Initiatives to Distressed Enterprises for Economic Recovery (GUIDE) bill.
FIST allows banks to dispose of bad loans and non-performing assets through asset management companies, while GUIDE seeks to allow state-run banks to form a special holding company that will infuse equity, with strict conditions, into strategically important companies facing insolvency.
Likewise, the finance chief urged the Senate to pass the proposed Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises Act (CREATE), which will immediately lower the corporate income tax (CIT) rate from 30 percent to 25 percent.
“The swift enactment of CREATE, FIST, GUIDE and the 2021 budget will serve to accelerate our economic recovery. We should not delay providing urgent and necessary relief to our people,” Dominguez said during the Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC) briefing.
The DBCC is composed of the heads of the Department of Budget and Management (DBM), DOF, National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA), Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP); and a senior representative from the Office of the President (OP).
“We are committed to working closely with you on the recovery measures so that these can be enacted in a timely, decisive, and responsible manner,” Dominguez told members of the panel chaired by Senator Juan Edgardo Angara.
He said the Duterte administration will continue to work with the legislature in passing the remaining packages of the comprehensive tax reform program (CTRP) that will, among others, institute reforms in property valuation and in the taxation of the financial sector.
Dominguez said economic recovery also rests on sustaining President Duterte’s signature program "Build, Build, Build," as sound infrastructure investments provide the largest multiplier effect on the economy in the form of more jobs creation, increased consumption, and the generation of additional productive activities.