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Friday, March 29, 2024

House set to pass CURES Act

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The House of Representatives' Defeat COVID-19 Committee is poised to approve today the P1.5-trillion social amelioration program under the proposed “COVID-19 Unemployment Reduction Economic Stimulus Act of 2020."

The committee is led by House Majority Leader and Leyte Rep. Martin Romualdez and Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano

“I enjoin all House members to throw their support behind this bill. I pray that through the collaborative of all stakeholders, we can further fine-tune this proposal and come up with a refined version that will greatly benefit our fellow countrymen and move our country forward,” Romualdez said.

The bill was approved Tuesday morning by the DCC’s Social Amelioration Cluster led by Deputy Speaker and Camarines Sur Rep. Luis Raymund Villafuerte Jr. and Leyte Rep. Lucy Torres-Gomez.

In the upper house, Senate President Vicente Sotto III

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on Wednesday filed Senate Bill 1542 that seeks to “establish an economic stimulus strategy for the country’s growth and development” in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Quezon Rep. Mark Enverga, Sotto’s party mate in the Nationalist People’s Coalition, has filed a similar measure at the House of Representatives.

Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto, meanwhile, on said the social amelioration program’s second tranche must not be held up by liquidation reports.

Earlier, Social Welfare said a condition for the release of the second installment of the SAP was the local government’s liquidation report on the first wave of the cash distribution.

Recto said this audit rule should be followed strictly in ordinary times.

“But in the midst of the pandemic, it should be relaxed and not waived, but only insofar as extending the deadline of submission and not making it a requisite for the release of the next tranche,” he said.

In Malacañang, Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque said Wednesday the biggest bulk of the P100-billion budget for the second tranche of the emergency subsidies under the SAP will be electronically distributed to indigent families.

He said the government intended to give the second wave of payouts to SAP beneficiaries through electronic cash transfers to ensure faster distribution of the cash aid amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Following House Bill 6709 CURES’ approval, Romualdez’s DCC will set a hearing today to endorse the measure for plenary consideration.

Romualdez said the proposed "CURES Act of 2020" was anchored on the principle that government spending on infrastructure was a vehicle for economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, as it would directly increase employment, add to the demand for goods and services through the purchases of materials and equipment, and create a multiplier effect through the additional spending of hired workers.

As one of the co-authors of the bill, Villafuerte urged his fellow lawmakers to support the immediate passage of the bill.

“If we were able to provide over P200 billion on doles through the Bayanihan Act, I think it is just right to provide P500 billion under the proposed CURES Act to create jobs. The rationale of this bill is that all infrastructure projects should be shovel-ready,” Villafuerte said.

He said the swift congressional approval of the CURES Act of 2020 would help ease the pressure on the Duterte administration to create hundreds of thousands of jobs this year, now that the COVID-19 crisis had displaced—according to the Department of Labor and Employment—almost 2.76 million workers as more than 102,000 establishments had closed shop or adopted flexible work arrangements since the imposition of lockdowns nationwide.

“The social amelioration cluster of the DCC chaired by Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano has approved HB 6709 to set the stage for the Congress to help the Duterte administration reset the economy and generate jobs following the sudden work stoppage set off by the quarantine measures that were effected in mid-March to prevent the spread of COVID-19,” Villafuerte said.

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