Cayetano: Almost 200 solons to donate 1 month salary to raise P50M for COVID-19 fight

MANILA, Philippines — Almost 200 lawmakers in the House of Representatives will donate their full salary for the month of May and raise P50 million to help the government in curbing the coronavirus disease crisis in the country, House Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano said Saturday.

“Almost 200 congressmen will donate our full sweldo ng May. Ang initial target ay P50 million,” Cayetano said in a virtual press conference when asked if the House members will also donate salaries for the COVID-19 fight just like what the Cabinet members earlier promised.

(Almost 200 congressmen will donate our full salary for May. The initial target is P50 million.)

“We want to use the money where it will be most effective,” he added.

Cayetano said they will make another donation if the crisis would continue in June.

“May muna pinagusapan namin, hopefully hindi umabot ng June pero ‘pag umabot pa, then we will make a second call,” he said.

(We only thought of donating salary for May and hopefully the crisis will not continue until June but if it will, then we will make a second call.)

Earlier, Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles said Cabinet members pledged to voluntarily allocate 75 percent of their monthly salary to assist the government in addressing the COVID-19 outbreak.