“Bayanihan to Heal as One Act”, if this bill was enacted into law, eighteen (18) million poor Filipino families would receive P5,000 to P8,000  financial assistance for two months.

Senator Pia Cayetano disclosed this law when she presented for plenary approval on Monday Senate  Bill 1413. That she and Senate President Vicente “Tito” Sotto III filed to address the coronavirus  19  (COVID-19)  outbreak.

Senator Cayetano clarified that only about 6.6 million households belong to the formal sector can avail of their savings and other benefits from their places of work to survive. About 6.6 million households out of the 24. 6  million Filipino families in the Philippines, 

Cayetano said in her speech, “The remaining 18 million families work in the informal economy, or are poor or near-poor. If they do not work, they have no income. “No work, no pay”, “isang kahig isang tuka,” ika nga,”.

“These are excruciatingly difficult times, especially for them, and we must do what we can to help. Hindi natin pababayaan ang ating mga kababayan (No one would be left behind),”

“The bill that I sponsor today proposes to raise enough money to support families for two months, so that each of these 18 million household gets between 5,000 to 8,000 pesos per month from the various national government and local government programs, whether in cash or kind, but mostly food,” she added.

She said the exact amount would be based on the minimum wage per region.

Cayetano said that out of the 18 million poor families, only 4.4 million households are current beneficiaries of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) or the conditional cash transfer or CCT program that have already been receiving P2,150 per month.

She explained, “So we will just top-up their subsidies to reach the proposed P5,000 to P8,000, depending on their region so that they can avail of basic food, medicine, and toiletries,” 

So the additional subsidy for these CCT  beneficiaries would amount to a total of  P15.5 billion a month.

The remaining  13.5 million poor families that are not-CCT beneficiaries, would get P5,000 to P8,000 in total from some various national and local government programs.

That makes the cash subsidy for this 13.5 million families would cost the P82 billion per month from the government.

The senator said, “The total Emergency Subsidy Program will require a total of P97.4 billion per month, or around P200 billion for two months for all households working in the informal sector, plus 5.1 billion of administrative cost,” 

Cayetano assured everyone that the government has available funds to support this.

Senator Cayetano said, “To get this done, we in the Senate and our counterparts in the House of Representatives must immediately enact a special law to allow the President to move and reallocate funds to where they are most urgently needed and create new budget items for new programs so that we can deliver emergency aid to our people without delay,” 

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