Philippines: COVID-19 Active Response and Expenditure Support (CARES) Program

approved

The CARES Program is proposed to be supported under AIIB's COVID-19 Crisis Recovery Facility (Facility) and cofinanced with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) as a policy-based loan under its Countercyclical Support Facility COVID-19 Pandemic Response Option (CPRO). The Program will provide critically needed support to help the Government of the Philippines (GoP) mitigate the severe health, social, and economic impact caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. On Mar. 15, 2020, the GoP announced a COVID-19 Response Program, with several priority actions to address the negative impacts of the pandemic and combat the spread of COVID-19. Specific measures under the Response Program include: (i) enhanced quarantine to reduce the infection rate; (ii) expanded medical services to step up testing and care for affected populations; (iii) social protection and livelihood support to help mitigate the immediate impacts on livelihoods and employment; (iv) a small business relief program; (v) support for agriculture and other economic sectors; and (vi) local government support. The Program is expected to have the following outputs: (i) by May 2020, an increase in testing capacity to 8,000 per day; (ii) by July 2020, the average turn-around time from sample collection to results reduced to 48 hours or less; (iii) by July 2020, all health care workers, of which 75 percent are female, and all COVID19 cases covered with Philippine Health Insurance Corporation inpatient and primary care COVID-19 related benefits; (iv) by July 2020, conditional cash transfers and emergency subsidy support provided to 4.4 million vulnerable households; (v) by July 2020, emergency subsidy support provided for 13.6 million households; (vi) by December 2020, USD600 million of economic stimulus and support provided to highly affected and vulnerable sectors including agriculture; (vii) by December 2020, wage subsidies provided for at least 1 million micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) (of which 58 percent are registered to women); and (viii) by December 2020, tax relief provided for at least 1 million MSMEs (of which 58 percent are registered to women).