THE Department of Finance reported that the funding for the government’s response to the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic has reached $19.6 billion (about P979 billion).”The Covid-19 bonds, loans and grants are a total of $19.6 billion disbursed over a two-year period,” Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez 3rd said during the continuation of the House of Representatives’ Committee on Appropriations’ deliberations for the P5.02-trillion 2022 budget on Thursday night.He said that of the total, $11 billion came from global bond issuance, $7.7 billion from program loans, $200 million from previously contracted funding, $26 million from project financing, and $637 million from other loans.According to Dominguez, the government has also raised $1.126 billion from multilateral financing for the purchase of 105.65 million vaccination doses.The government had inked deals to purchase 15.5 million doses for $176.5 million from the national budget.In terms of donations, the country got a total of 48.8 million doses, he further said.The Finance chief went on to say that the total amount of vaccines arriving in the country this year is 194.89 million doses, including 24.9 million purchased by the private sector with their own money.”It is scheduled to arrive this year, and this is good enough to vaccinate 100.5 million Filipinos,” he emphasized.
Read More