Sunday, May 2, 2021

P25B IN CALAMITY FUNDS UNSPENT AMID PANDEMIC. Inquirer Newsletter May 3, 2021

`WOUNDED HUMANITY’ Pope Francis recites the rosary prayer for the `wounded humanity’ at the Gregorian Chapel inside St. Peter’s Basilica even as he urges Catholics to pray for the health workers, the poor and the homeless. REUTERS

Board Talk

Making corporate culture count in recovery

The COVID-19 global pandemic has been like an ebbing tide for many businesses. When the waters receded, they found what lay beneath. For Jun Cuaresma, managing partner and chief operating officer at P&A Grant Thornton, corporate culture is what will hold an organization together even when time and tides change.

Regions

2 activists nabbed by cops in Bicol

The youth group Anakbayan has raised an alert on the fate of two local activists who were arrested by policemen in separate operations in Albay and Camarines Sur provinces early on Sunday. —Story by Mar S. Arguelles

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P25B IN CALAMITY FUNDS UNSPENT AMID PANDEMIC

Amid the prolonged fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, a total of P25.14 billion in calamity funds from the 2020 and 2021national budgets remains unutilized as of March, pending approval on several levels in government, including the Office of the President. The latest data from the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) showed that, as of March 31, P5.14 billion in the 2020 National Disaster Risk Reduction Management Fund (NDRRMF)—more popularly known as the calamity fund—remained unreleased.

President Duterte has extended the effectivity of last year's P4.1-trillion national budget up to end-2021.

The calamity fund for 2020 amounted to P16 billion, portions of which had been released following the series of typhoons that hit the country that year.

But still unreleased in last year's NDRRMF was P439.2 million in the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Program (NDRRMP).

‘Calamities, epidemics’

According to budget documents, the NDRRMP funds can be spent on epidemics, as declared by the Department of Health (DOH), subject to the approval of the Office of the President upon recommendation of the inter-agency National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC).

The annual NDRRMP also served as an additional funding source, subject to DBM’s approval, to the quick response fund (QRF) of implementing agencies when their balances reached 50 percent.

The DBM defined the QRF as a “standby-fund to be used in order that the situation and living conditions of people in communities or areas stricken by calamities, epidemics, crises, and catastrophes may be normalized as quickly as possible.”

While only P439.2 million in the NDRRMP were still available, DBM data showed a bigger total of P928.07 million in programs and projects had been "earmarked" for the fund, of which P100 million in special allotment release orders (Saros) to the state-run National Electrification Administration (NEA) were awaiting the DBM's issuance; P240.48 million were already approved by the Office of the President for Saro issuance to the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA); and the biggest chunk of P587.59 million—P378.92 million for the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) and P208.67 million for the Department of National Defense (DND)—was still pending the President's approval.—INQ

Editorial

Relief for harassed borrowers

Hard-up borrowers already at their wits’ end trying to scrape together enough money to pay their debts caught a much-needed break last week when the Department of Justice warned online lending companies against employing unfair debt collection practices and cyber harassment.

Read full story: opinion.inquirer.net