DOF: No Need for Bayanihan 3

Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III said that there is no more need for another stimulus measure and adds that unused Bayanihan to Recover as One Act and national budget allocations are planned to be used as the stimulus for 2021.

The budget gap for 2021 is about 8.9 percent of the total gross domestic product (GDP) of the country, the Finance Secretary said during the virtual briefing of the inter-agency Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC) on Thursday.

“That assumes that whatever was not spent from the 2020 budget plus whatever was not spent in the Bayanihan 2 (Bayanihan to Recover as One Act) will be extended to next year. So that leaves us with a very, very tight fiscal situation,” he said.

Dominguez said the unspent budget from this year’s national budget along with those from Bayanihan 2 will be around PHP213 billion, in which he said “would be the stimulus for next year.”

Bayanihan 2 is set to expire mid-December. (GFB)