Millennium challenge projects completed

The Philippines has substantially completed projects required under the US Millennium Challenge Corp.’s (MCC) initial $434-million grant, with work underway for the second grant.

John A. Polk, MCC resident country director for the Philippines, told reporters that a team dedicated to the second compact process arrived during the weekend to help in determining what projects could be funded following the ongoing “constraints to growth analysis” being undertaken by the government.

In a visit to the Philippines last November, MCC chief executive Dana J. Hyde said second compacts usually have deeper focus on one to two sectors, and tend to be smaller than the amounts granted the first time.

Polk said there was no timetable yet for the implementation of the second grant, although the Department of Finance (DOF) has already formed a team that would align the compact with the country’s long-term development goals.

As for the projects under the first compact, Millennium Challenge Account-Philippines (MCA-P) chief executive and managing director Maria Victoria E. Añonuevo said substantial progress had been made toward completion ahead of the deadline next month, marking the end of the five-year grant.

Añonuevo said all five planned modules have been launched under the Revenue Administration Reform Project (RARP) implemented by the DOF and the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR).

According to Finance Undersecretary Carlo A. Carag, RARP has “contributed significantly” to the government’s Revenue Integrity Protection Service or RIPS, the DOF’s anti-corruption arm.