ADB Loans Philippines $1.5B for Covid-19 Efforts

ADB President Masatsugu Asakawa called it the largest support loan his organization has offered the country.

“Amid a global pandemic, the most vulnerable are developing countries, especially those with densely populated cities such as the Philippines. We commend the government for its leadership and clear actions in containing the spread of COVID-19, including scaling up its health response, enforcing an enhanced community quarantine in Luzon to save lives, and rolling out subsidy programs to affected segments of the population,” he said.

Philippine Finance Secretary and ADB Governor Carlos G. Dominguez thanked the bank “for swiftly responding to the Philippines’ call for funding support in this time of crisis.” 

He also highlighted the bank’s move to increase its response package for developing member countries from $6.5 billion to $20 billion. .

The new loan follows the $5 million grant approved on March 18 for the delivery of food baskets to 140,000 vulnerable households in Metro Manila and neighboring areas. Another is the $3 million grant approved on March 13 for the purchase of emergency medical supplies and the setup of a new laboratory to increase the Philippine’s COVID-19 testing capacity by 3,000 tests per day. This laboratory is expected to be functional by May. 

The loan is also part of ADB’s COVID-19 Active Response and Expenditure Support (CARES) Program.

So far, the Philippine government’s COVID-19 relief package for Filipino families includes P205 billion ($4 billion) in emergency subsidies. This covers 18 million families engaged in the informal sector. Meanwhile, a P51 billion small business wage subsidy covers 3.4 million workers in the formal sector. These programs cover 85% of all Filipino families.