DBM releasing P6.1B in grants to provinces for COVID-19 response

Not to be left behind by their city and municipal counterparts, provincial governments will divide among themselves P6.1 billion in funds for COVID-19 response.

Documents showed that the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) on Tuesday (April 14) issued two notices of cash allocation (NCAs) to the Bureau of the Treasury worth P1.4 billion and P4.7 billion for the cash requirements of the Bayanihan Grant to Provinces.

This was on top of the P30.8-billion Bayanihan Grant to Cities and Municipalities released last week.

Budget Secretary Wendel E. Avisado told the Inquirer that the additional funds provided to the country’s 82 provinces were equivalent to one-half month of their internal revenue allotment (IRA).

For 2020, provinces had been allotted a total of P149.3 billion in IRA shares, based on the computation of local government units’ (LGUs) shares from the Bureau of Internal Revenue’s (BIR) actual collection of national taxes in 2017, as mandated by Republic Act (RA) No. 7160 or the Local Government Code of 1991.

Avisado said the additional funds for provinces would “allow them to respond to COVID-19, particularly to support their hospitals and checkpoints established and maintained by the provinces.”

Avisado added that the guidelines on how the Bayanihan Grant to Provinces can be spent will be posted on the DBM’s website.

The earlier Bayanihan Grant to Cities and Municipalities equivalent to one month of their 2020 IRA can be used to buy personal protective equipment (PPE), testing kits, medicines and vitamins, hospital equipment and supplies, food assistance and relief goods, among other COVID-19-related expenses.

Edited by TSB