Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon on Monday said the country’s ineligibility to access millions worth of grants from the Washington-based Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) is another missed opportunity.

Drilon noted that the MCC has given the Philippines a failing mark on the following: corruption, rule of law, freedom of information, health expenditures, immunization rates, access to credit. This made the country ineligible for a new aid compact in 2021.
 
“(It’s) another missed opportunity. We missed a great opportunity to get funding aimed at reducing poverty and strengthening good governance,” Drilon said in a statement.
 
“It saddens us that the government’s inability to curb corruption has affected our access to critical grants such as the MCC. This underscores the need to combat corruption. Otherwise, we risk losing several funding, grants and incentive programs that can help alleviate poverty in the country,” the minority leader emphasized.
 
In a statement issued last Nov. 9, the MCC explained that “the scorecards are a key component in MCC’s annual competitive selection process that determines which countries are eligible to develop a five-year grant agreement, known as a compact, with the agency.”
 
To be considered for an MCC compact, it said countries are expected to first pass MCC’s scorecard, passing at least 10 of the 20 indicators, including the Political Rights or Civil Liberties indicator, and the Control of Corruption indicator.”
 
Drilon stressed the Philippines benefited greatly from the MCC. The $434-million aid it last extended to the Philippines during the Aquino administration was used to modernize the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) to strengthen tax collection, provided community-driven development projects to far-flung and high-poverty communities, and rehabilitated a critical secondary national road on Samar Island.
 
He also said previous projects funded by MCC aid compact had helped generate additional domestic tax revenue since 2013, and renovated 222 kilometers of a national road “that serves as a lifeline for numerous towns and municipalities in one of the poorest and most typhoon-prone areas of the country” to new climate-resilient standards.
 
MCC also helped implement a 4,000 small-scale community-driven development projects in rural, high-poverty areas based on needs identified and prioritized by residents across Filipino communities.
 
The lawmaker pointed out that the year 2021 should be a year for recovery from the impact of COVID-19 pandemic and the onslaught of typhoons. The MCC grant could have made the country’s recover faster.
 
“The country has lost not only grants but a chance to change lives and create impact,” Drilon lamented.