Duterte OKs P51 billion wage subsidy for middle class

MANILA, Philippines, April 15 ------ President Duterte has approved a P50.8-billion wage subsidy program for around 3.4 million middle class workers whose jobs were affected by the Luzon-wide enhanced community quarantine due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) crisis. At a virtual press briefing yesterday, Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles said Duterte approved the Small Business Wage Subsidy (SBWS) program, which will benefit workers employed by some 1.6 million micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) forced to stop operations because of the quarantine implemented to curb the transmission of COVID-19 . The SBWS was presented to the President by Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III and his team during a meeting of the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases at Malacañang on Monday night. Dominguez said the subsidy, ranging from P5,000 to P8,000 per beneficiary, would be given for two months. The first tranche would be implemented from May 1 to 15. The second tranche is set from May 16 to 30. The program will benefit some 2.6 million workers whose employers are registered with the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) and Social Security System (SSS), according to Domiguez. He said these employees could be easily identified and processed for coverage. The program will also support another 800,000 workers whose employers are not fully compliant with BIR and SSS regulations. The finance chief said the details, mechanics and eligibility criteria of the beneficiaries would be announced this week. Dominguez said an online system would be launched this week to enable small business owners to submit the lists of their employees through the SSS website. Finance Undersecretary Karl Kendrick Chua said eligible workers in Metro Manila and Regions 3 and 4A would be given P8,000 per month. “The reason for this is that there are many workers who live in one region and work in another region,” Chua said. He said the distribution of the wage subsidy would be better targeted as those registered with the SSS and BIR are easily identifiable. Bank and e-wallet accounts can also be registered with the SSS for the efficient disbursement of subsidies, Chua said. To avoid duplication, he said workers who have availed themselves of assistance under the COVID-19 Adjustment Measures Program of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) will only be eligible for a one-month wage subsidy. According to Chua, some 436,300 small businesses were forced to stop operations after Luzon was placed under enhanced community quarantine. He said some one million businesses are able to operate with skeleton forces. Only 117,666 essential small businesses, including drugstores, supermarkets and those involved in food service and logistics, have been allowed to operate since the quarantine was implemented, Chua said. President Duterte has ordered agencies to ensure that low-income families not yet on the list of beneficiaries of the government’s aid package would receive assistance. Duterte directed the Departments of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) and the Interior and Local Government to work together to ensure that relief would be extended to the needy. The DSWD previously admitted that the absence of a credible list of beneficiaries from local governments had hampered the grant of assistance to poor families. Duterte said the implementation of the national ID system would have made the identification of beneficiaries easier. He blamed the Left for the refusal of some people to be included in the government database. Source: philstar.com