The Senate on Wednesday ratified the reconciled version of the bicameral conference committee report on the proposed P5.024-trillion national budet for 2022.
Senator Sonny Angara, chair of the Senate Committee on Finance, assured that next year’s budget, which would be submitted to President Duterte immediately for his approval, is still centered on achieving full economic recovery from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Angara said health remains with the highest allocation with the Department of Health (DOH) getting P22.99-billion augmentation for its Health Facilities Enhancement Program or HFEP.
According to Angara, support would also be provided for the operations of DOH hospitals across the country while significant funding would be allcoated clsoe to P3-billion for medical scholarships.
“Even though the new COVID-19 cases in the country is now already low, and almost all local government units (LGUs) in Metro Manila have been declared ‘very low risk’, the threat of the Omicron variant is still real,” Angara said during the sponsorship speech.
For this reason, he said lawmakers increased the budget for the benefits and compensation for healthcare workers, human resource for health emergency hiring, laboratory network commodities, epidemiology and surveillance program of the DOH, operations of the country’s national referenece laboratories like the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) and hiring and training of contact tracers.
Angara also said they maintained the provision that would allow the goernment to use funds allcoated for vaccines to buy FDA-approved drugs and medicines like Molnupiravir.
Likewise, Angara said funding support will remain for State Universities and Colleges (SUCs) with Schools of Medicine to increase the country’s pool of future medical frontliners and healthcare workers.
He also said a huge chunk of next year’s budget is also allocated for the Department of Education (DepEd) and SUCs which is crucial in the government’s goal for students to return to face-to-face classes.
Other salient features of the bicameral report on next year’s budget include:
1. Bigger budget for the social amelioration program (P5-billion); social pension for indigent senior citizens (P25.018-billion); Integrated Livelihood Program of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE); assistance to individuals in crisis situations or AICs of the DSWD (P39.865-billion); and for Emergency Repatriation Fund of the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA).
2. Fuel subsidy program in consideration of the transportation sector which was among the hardest-hit sectors amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.
3. PUV service contracting program which seeks to continue supporting many of the PUV operators and drivers who were not able to earn in the past two years due to restrictions in mobility.
4. Bigger budget for TUPAD or Tulong Panghanapbuhay sa Ating Disadvantaged or Displaced Workers o TUPAD and the Government Internship Program o GIP (P26.51B)—which are all critical programs listed under the National Employment Recovery Strategy (NERS).
5. Budget for free COVID-19 test for jobseekers which would be allocated through the DOLE.