The government’s chief economic manager said the two-week enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) has been a big achievement for the country’s inoculation program despite the sustained surge in infections.
Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III said Friday, August 20, that the number of people who have received their first dose has more than double between August 6 and 19 compared with the previous two-weeks.
“The big achievement during the ECQ period from August 6-19, is that 4.1 million people received their first dose versus 1.6 million from July 23 thru August 5,” Dominguez told reporters.
Based on the report by the Department of Health, more than 12.7 million Filipinos have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 so far, while over 15.5 million have gotten their first dose.
Dominguez has been saying that ramping-up mass vaccination “will significantly reduce the need for wide-scale quarantines, especially in key economic centers where the majority of Filipinos work.”
Late Thursday, the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases downgraded the quarantine classification in Metro Manila, Laguna, and Bataan from ECQ to modified ECQ beginning August 21 to 31.
The National Economic and Development Authority had estimated that the local economy had likely incurred P300 billion in economic losses during the ECQ period.
Last Wednesday, the Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC), an inter-agency body tasked to set the country’s macroeconomic targets, shaved off its gross domestic product (GDP) outlook for 2021 to between 4.0 percent and 5.0 percent.
The DBCC had penciled in on August 6 a GDP forecast range 6.0 percent to 7.0 percent.
The economic team attributed the slow pace growth on “the reimposition of stricter mobility restrictions in various areas of the country.”
Nicholas T. Mapa, ING Bank Manila senior economist said the growth momentum is faltering, and calls for an aggressive fiscal fight back have been mounting.
Mapa said there are government funds “sitting idly” at the central bank under the treasury single account (TSA) that could have been used to fund additional spending or a third round of Bayanihan.
“The TSA has been built up since falling to P200 billion in late 2019 as the government super-sized spending to close out that year. Since then the size of the TSA has ballooned to the highest level since the pandemic,” Mapa said.
The ING Bank economist said the TSA now amounts to P1.63 trillion.
“It appears that the national government has been warchesting and building up quite a huge amount of funds however national government expenditures remain modest while growth momentum stalls anew,” Mapa said.
Dominguez said the cash resources in the TSA remain sufficient to pay for the programmed expenditures.
“We are prepared as the agencies ramp up their spending activities and for timely payment of our obligations as they fall due,” the finance chief said.