Relief and lifelines offered amid extended lockdown

Electricity consumers belonging to electric cooperatives and using less than 50 kilowatts per hour a month will not be charged for the March-to-April period, according to Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles who is spokesman of the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases.

A calamity loan from the Social Security System (SSS) is also being made available to help workers displaced by the coronavirus outbreak, while the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) extended the filing of returns to May 30 to give taxpayers more time to meet their obligations after the expected lifting of lockdown measures after April 30.

The power consumer relief forms part of the Pantawid Liwanag, a program that aims to help some 3 million poor electricity users in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao, said Nograles.

It would be on top of the one-month grace period they would get to pay their power bills, he added.

He acknowledged and thanked the initiative of the National Electrification Administration, Philippine Rural Electric Cooperatives Association Inc., and other electric cooperatives.

 Nograles also assured the public that Luzon would have enough power supply during the quarantine period.

The Department of Energy reported an available capacity of 11,795 megawatts (MW), which Nograles said was greater than the actual peak demand of 7,323 MW in Luzon.

There will also be enough water, he said, since the National Water Resources Board has given the full water allocation of 46 cubic meters per second to the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System from Angat Dam up to April 30 to ensure the continuous supply of water in Metro Manila during the lockdown.

Likewise, the SSS is launching a nationwide calamity loan program on April 24 to help its members who have lost their earning capacity due to the stay-at-home orders.

Fernando Nicolas, SSS vice president for public affairs and special events, said the loan would be P20,000 or equivalent to a month’s salary credit, based on the average credit during the last 12 months or the amount applied for, whichever is lower.

Nicolas said the SSS was making the loan available to cover its members’ contingencies from March to May.

SSS has set aside about P20.4 billion for more than 1.74 million potential borrowers.

Members may file their loan applications through the SSS website or its mobile app using their My.SSS accounts. Once approved, the loan will be credited to members’ enrolled bank accounts, Nicolas said.

“The loan is payable in 27 months, inclusive of the three-month moratorium period. Amortization shall start [in] the fourth month after the date of approval of the loan,” he said.

“The service fee of one percent of the loan amount is waived. The loan is subject to the interest rate of 10% per annum, which will start [in] the fourth month, computed on a diminishing principal balance,” he added.

SSS is also working on a possible moratorium in payments of housing and pension loans.

The BIR, meanwhile, has extended by two weeks, or up to May 30, the deadline for filing 2019 returns following the extension of the Luzon lockdown up to April 30.

Mandatory deadline for filing of returns is April 15, but BIR extended it to May 15.

According to Deputy Revenue Commissioner Arnel Guballa, the new deadline is May 29, a Friday, since May 30 is a Saturday.

The new deadline for the filing of returns is part of regulations published by BIR extending the deadlines for 40 transactions and documents, including value-added tax refunds and tax credit/refund applications.

Earlier, BIR extended the deadline for its amnesty for tax delinquencies to June 28. It earlier moved to May 23 from April 23 the deadline for tax delinquencies.

The amnesty, which started in April last year, covers all national taxes — capital gains tax, documentary stamp tax, donor’s tax, excise tax, income tax, percentage tax, VAT and withholding tax for 2017 and previous years.

BIR also moved to May 25 from April 25 the deadline for payment of quarterly percentage tax.