Philippine Seeks Billion of Loans For COVID-19 Pandemic

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic on the country, the Philippine government had just recently been awarded a $100 million loan to enable the country's capacity in response to the coronavirus disease that has been crippling its citizens amidst the lockdown.

The five billion pesos loan was awarded by the World Bank and was announced by the international financial institution themselves.

The announcement said that the loan will support the Department of Health's COVID-19 Emergency Response Project, which aims to improve the delivery of critical medical services and supplies to combat the pandemic.

Photo: pymnts.com

If you think this amount is huge, the World Bank had already awarded a $500 million loan to the country, which also had the coronavirus as the sole reason for the approval. The 25.2 billion pesos loan will be paid by the Philippine government in 29 years and has a grace period of 10.5 years as stated on its official website.

But wait there's more...

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) also approved a $200-million loan to support the Philippine government's efforts to provide cash subsidies to the poorest of the poor that has been the most affected on the crisis.

Prior to this, the Philippines and the Asian Development Bank signed a loan agreement that would enable the government to access $1.5 billion for the coronavirus related measures.

On the other note, the Philippine government has applied for a $750-million loan from China’s Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) to help fund the coronavirus pandemic 2019 (COVID-19) containment effort. AIIB said that the loan application is expected to be acted on by May 2020. The government allots the loan for the COVID-19 Active Response and Expenditure Support (CARES) Program.

Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte signed into law the Republic Act No. 11469 or the "Bayanihan to Heal as One Act", authorizing the government to implement a COVID-19 emergency subsidy program that provides cash payments of P5,000 to P8,000 per month for two months to 18 million low-income families nationwide.