A Catholic Church labour group in the Philippines has accused lawmakers of ignoring the poor, as well as the health and labour sectors with its budget for 2021 by not allocating a “sufficient amount” to cushion the effect of the coronavirus on hard-hit Filipinos.
The Church People-Solidarity Group, an organisation composed of clergymen and churchgoers advocating for the protection of workers’ rights, said lawmakers promoted social exclusion instead of social justice.
“The budget approved by Congress fails to address the needs of those who are affected by the coronavirus pandemic, especially the workers. There was very little reserved for social amelioration of retrenched workers and the poor. A huge chunk of the budget was for infrastructure, which we think, is non-priority given the pandemic,” the group said in a statement.
Philippine lawmakers approved on a 4.5 trillion-peso (€78.4 billion) budget for 2021.
Under Philippine law, Congress has the “power of the purse” or the authority to approve and allocate the country’s annual budget.
The group’s chairman, Bishop Gerardo Alminaza, however, said Congress had intensified inequality by being anti-poor for its meagre allocation to the health and labour departments.
“The 2021 national budget intensifies social exclusion because it would show that the poor who cannot afford to go to hospitals or take swab tests would die due to lack of money in the health sector,” Bishop Alminaza told reporters.
