Despite aid from the United States being put on hold, the Duterte administration has attracted close to P1 trillion in official development assistance (ODA) from economic giants China and Japan in its first seven months in office.
The record amount in ODA is expected to further increase with more commitments from other countries.
“From July 1st to now, the President has raised close to P1 trillion in ODA. And I’m only counting the amounts from China and Japan, and there’s more ODA that we have received but haven’t counted in from various countries,” Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III said in a Palace statement on Sunday.
Dominguez also emphasized that he was referring to ODA alone, not trade deals.
ODA refers to both outright grants and long-term and low-interest loans given by foreign governments to support development efforts of developing countries.
Last month, US aid agency Millennium Challenge Corp. (MCC), expressing concerns over extrajudicial killings amid the Duterte administration’s war on drugs, said it was putting on hold funding for a second Philippine antipoverty program.
MCC said its board had “deferred a vote on the reselection of the Philippines for compact development, subject to further review of concerns around rule of law and civil liberties.”
Its first five-year, $434-million compact with the Philippines ended in May last year.
In its statement, Malacañang said the ODA from China and Japan totaled some $18 billion (about P900 billion).
“The ODA from Japan, as announced by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, is 1 trillion yen, which is equivalent to more or less $9 billion,” Dominguez said.
For the ODA from China, Dominguez said the government had already submitted the list of projects to China last November. These projects include the rehabilitation of the Agus River, irrigation facilities in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao and a seaport in Cebu.
“Our team is going to China in the third week of January to discuss how to make progress in the projects that we have submitted to them,” Dominguez said.
