THE ASIAN Development Bank (ADB) has approved $1.5 billion to help the Philippine government maintain essential public services and protect families amid rising prices stemming from the Middle East conflict.
“Every week this crisis continues to ask more of people who have little left to give,” ADB President Masato Kanda said in a press release on Thursday. “They have a right to expect that the institutions serving them will meet their struggle with equal resolve. With this financing, we are backing the Philippines’ determination to keep its people secure and its future within its own hands.”
The financing will help the government secure fuel supplies, maintain affordable power, health services, medicine, and food, as well as support people whose incomes are threatened by the conflict.
It will also help bring affected overseas Filipino workers home and assist them on their return.
The financing was approved under ADB’s Assistance for Greater Resilience and Alleviation of Poverty program, which will be coursed through the government’s Unified Package for Livelihoods, Industry, Food, and Transport program.
The support comes through ADB’s Countercyclical Support Facility, which is its region-wide crisis financing mechanism. — Aaron Michael C. Sy