The government has so far spent around P258 billion, or 73 percent, of the P352 billion it has released for its COVID-19 response programs on emergency subsidies and other forms of assistance to poor and low-income households, displaced workers and other vulnerable groups affected by the pandemic.
Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III said the P352-billion unplanned fund releases, which mostly involved reprogramming of existing appropriations in the 2019 and 2020 budgets, to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, came from the tax collections of state revenue agencies; income from actual dividend collections from government-owned and controlled corporations (GOCCs); and concessional loans and grants provided by multilateral lenders such as the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the World Bank.
