Tax and other stimulus initiatives for economic recovery from Covid-19

The huge impact of the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic on the health and mobility of our people, as well as on our businesses and economy as a whole, is beyond what we all thought. The enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) imposed in mid-March has been extended, albeit in a modified form covering Metro Manila, Cebu and Laguna, until the end of May, while several regions were put under general community quarantine (GCQ). Most of us continue to work from home. However, the number of confirmed Covid-19 cases continues to rise steadily. The risk of a spike is feared, especially as people start to move around under the lockdowns that took effect on May 16.

The damage of these quarantines to our economy is enormous. Although the Philippines has been identified as one of the fastest-growing economies, growing at an average of 6.6 percent from 2016 to 2019, it is projected that the originally projected gross domestic product (GDP) growth of 6.6 percent in 2020 would most likely contract to -2.0 to -3.4 percent.