The Bayanihan to Heal as One Law states that the president is required to give a weekly report to Congress of all the government’s actions to prevent COVID-19. On May 18, Inquirer released President Rodrigo Duterte’s eight weekly reports. But not everyone can easily comprehend status reports.
It’s a good thing there’s now a website making COVID-19 budget data more accessible via brief summaries and charts.
Citizen’s Budget Tracker is a website made by a group of volunteers in partnership with PH COVID19 Action Network (CAN), Right to Know Right Now (R2KRN) Coalition, Sin Tax Coalition, Movement for Good Governance (MGG) and #MoveAsOne Coalition (Public Transport). In their about page, it states that they have one goal: to help track the government’s efforts in solving the COVID-19 crisis.
“We hope to promote public awareness of how our funds are being spent and to hold our government accountable for a timely response to this crisis,” reads their about page. “We update every time a dataset from the government is released. We analyze reports and documents released by the government and turn them into information that can help the public understand better where our funds are going.”
So far, the government has spent 31 percent of the P380 billion allocated for social amelioration, local government units’ transfers and health (including Philhealth). Seventeen percent of the P73 billion has been used on health, while 40 percent of the P270 billion budget has been spent on social amelioration.
The volunteers of the Citizen’s Budget Tracker need more data on the P37 billion Bayanihan grant spending of local government units. “This is our main problem: we need to spend faster to stop hunger,” they write on their website.
The site aims to promote accountability and make sure our COVID-19 response budget is used properly. So if someone commits a national oopsie, these volunteers will back it up with data ASAP.
Need a refresher on The Bayanihan to Heal as One Law? Check out our infographic below:
Read more:
What we know so far about Duterte’s proposed Bayanihan Act seeking national emergency, special powers
The alleged “propaganda material” that Bulacan police found was a primer on COVID-19
Only 11 million low-income families in ECQ will receive second installment of SAP
Art by Rogin Losa
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