SEN. Imee Marcos aired concerns that the 2022 budget of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) is likely to be delayed if it agrees to adopt a “no vaccine, no aid” policy imposed under the Duterte administration in a determined bid to contain the Covid contagion.
Sitting as vice chairperson of the Senate Finance committee, Marcos was tasked to sponsor for plenary approval the P191-billion annual budget of the DSWD, of which, P115 billion was intended to bankroll the government’s 4Ps program, also known as the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program.
She conveyed mounting apprehensions by affected sectors upon learning the looming delay in approving the DSWD funding program for next year if it agrees to the recommendation of the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) to first impose the Covid vaccination condition prior to granting aid to indigent sectors.
According to Marcos, she relayed this condition to the Senate leadership as she was already set to take the floor to sponsor and defend the DSWD budget bill during the plenary deliberations on the 2022 budget bill.
The senator added she had also alerted the DSWD that her fellow senators readily turned down the suggestion to adopt the no-vaccine-no-aid policy when it was first brought up.
For 2022, over P191 billion was submitted as the proposed budget, of which, P115 billion was allotted for 4Ps. As of now, sources said, the DSWD is reviewing the recommendation of the DILG to impose conditions prior to release aid to intended beneficiaries, even as it signaled they are not inclined to adopt the suggestion.
Marcos bemoaned that instead of thinking ways to squeeze the 4Ps beneficiaries, describing it as a “stupid and evil idea,” they should first confirm if the intended beneficiaries are not really keen on being vaccinated, or the free vaccine program has not yet reached their area.
Moreover, Marcos stressed it is not the fault of the intended beneficiaries of 4Ps that 45 million doses of vaccine are stuck in government warehouses for lack of transportation and cold storage facilities in remote local government units.