LOCAL government units (LGU) will now be able to use their Quick Response Funds for their Covid-19 response until next year.
This after President Duterte issued Proclamation No. 1218 late Friday, which extended the period of the State of Calamity nationwide due to Covid-19 from September 13, 2021 to September 12, 2022.
The Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) welcomed the development, which will allow LGUs to continue to access much needed funds for their ever-growing Covid-related expenses.
“This will benefit most especially the LGUs because they can use their calamity funds to respond to the continuing national emergency,” Interior spokesperson Jonathan Malaya told BusinessMirror in an SMS.
Aside from the access of calamity funds, Proclamation 1218 will also allow concerned government offices to monitor and control the prices of basic necessities and prime commodities during its effectiveness.
In Proclamation No. 1218, Duterte enjoined government agencies and LGUs “to undertake critical, urgent, and appropriate disaster response aid and measures in a timely manner and curtail and eliminate threat of Covid-19.”
He also instructed the Philippine National Police (PNP) and the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) to extend aid to relevant government offices to ensure peace and order during the pandemic.
Despite the government’s ongoing mass vaccination efforts, quarantine measures are still expected to persist until next year as Covid-19 cases continue to rise.
As of Friday, only 16.1 million of the country’s over 100 million population are fully vaccinated against Covid-19.
In its latest monitoring report, the Department of Health (DOH) registered 21,411 new Covid-19 cases on Sunday. This brings the total number of Covid-19 cases detected in the country to over 2.2 million.