P19B doleout for workers

by Maricel V. Cruz, Macon Ramos-Araneta, Manila Standard, 5 Feb 2021

The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) has allotted P19 billion in financial assistance to almost 2 million workers and about 500,000 overseas Filipino workers this year.

Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III said the original budget was only P16 billion but they received an additional P3 billion from the Tourism Department for tourism workers.

The department has not yet announced when the financial aid will be disbursed.

Under the plan, each qualified formal worker affected by the pandemic will get P5,000, while OFWs will get $200 or P10,000. DOLE said it also has a budget to help those working in the informal sector.

“Those who are self-employed like tricycle drivers, sidewalk vendors, those doing laundry, and manicurists,” Bello said. “They have been displaced also so we have to provide them assistance by providing them temporary employment from 10 to 15 days and pay them the minimum wage in the region where they come from.”

Meanwhile, Taguig Reps. Alan Peter Cayetano and Lani Cayetano have filed a bill that seeks to distribute additional cash assistance to families affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The bill proposes to create the Bangon Pamilyang Pilipino (BPP) Assistance Program, which will provide beneficiaries P1,500 per family member or P10,000 per household, whichever is higher.
Priority beneficiaries under the program are senior citizens, persons with disabilities, solo parents, displaced workers, medical frontliners, families of overseas Filipino workers, individuals who were not able to secure aid through the Social Amelioration Program, Philippine National ID holders, and members of vulnerable groups.

Reps. Luis Raymund Villafuerte Jr.. of Camarines Sur, Raneo Abu of Batangas, Dan Fernandez of Laguna, Jose Antonio Sy-Alvarado of Bulacan and Michael Defensor of Anakalusugan party-list group were co-authors of the bill.

Meanwhile, party-list Rep. Sharon Garin said countryside development will get a big boost once the President signs the recently ratified Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises (CREATE) bill.

Garin said micro-, small- and medium-scale enterprises will be the primary beneficiaries of the incentives mandated by the enrolled bill.

Garin, vice chairman of the House committee on ways and means, is one of the principal proponents of the bill.

Villafuerte, also a co-author, said the imminent enactment of CREATE would “underpin economic recovery as it would benefit primarily the country’s MSMEs that account for more than 99 percent of domestic businesses and employ about 70 percent of local workers.”

Villafuerte said CREATE would provide financial relief to coronavirus-hit MSMEs because one of this bill’s main features is the reduction of the corporate income tax (CIT) by a third from 30 percent—which is the highest rate in the region—to 20 percent for enterprises with net taxable income of P5 million and below plus total assets of not more than P100 million.

Senators said CREATE will address job mismatch as well.

“This will help address the jobs-skills mismatch in the country and improve employability of our graduates,” said Senator Joel Villanueva, chairman of the Senate labor committee.

The law, he said, would now provide training incentives to cushion the impact of automation in employment and enhance the skills of workers.

At the same time, Villanueva challenged the Department of Finance (DoF) and the Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) to fulfill the pledge that more than 1 million new jobs will be created once the CREATE bill is enacted into law and implemented by the executive department.

He said he was also holding them to their pledge that the proposed CREATE law would attract P12 trillion worth of local and foreign investments in the next decade and create more than 1.8 million jobs in the next 10 years.

“These jobs must be real, and not imagined. Our projections may be good on paper but if it does not materialize as hoped, we will fail our people miserably,” he added. “We need to create jobs for our people as we continue to jumpstart our economy back to the pink of health.”

Senator Sherwin Gatchalian said CREATE is a much-needed tax break for many pandemic-hit companies that are struggling with their finances and as a result, could prevent a wave of insolvencies.

“Saving jobs is crucial at this time. While adult joblessness, based on the latest SWS survey, has somehow eased in November last year, we still need to find ways to help those who lost their jobs and small businesses recover from the economic difficulties brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic through a hefty income tax cut,” he said.

Senate President Pro Temporer Ralph Recto hopes President Duterte would not veto the proposal in the CREATE bill to remove the value-added tax on the medicines.