MANILA, Philippines - A senior lawmaker warned yesterday the Aquino administration may face “severe budget cuts” next year unless under-spending departments and agencies shape up and use their current budget for vital government programs and projects.
Rep. Rodolfo Albano issued the warning as he expressed concern over a report of the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) that the Aquino Administration’s spending from January to April this year has been low and slow, or almost 20 percent lower than programmed.
“In the first place, why would these departments and agencies ask for huge budgets when they cannot actually spend these during the entire year? Government is hard pressed on raising money to meet the budgetary requirements of these department and agencies but they under-spend their budgets. Is it because they do not know how to implement their projects or have no well-planned projects like infrastructure,” Albano said.
“According to the DBM report, the administration failed to spend P100 billion of the programmed P561.36 billion, or 17.8 percent. The DBM likewise reported that the administration posted the highest ever one-month surplus in 25 years — P26.3 billion in April. It is clearly a case of under-spending which is not beneficial to our economy and the people,” he said.
Albano, a member of the House committee on appropriations, said he will question the under-spending practice of the administration during the forthcoming hearings on the government’s proposed budget for 2012.
He said the people should not be misled into believing that the under-spending practice is beneficial to the country and wrongly equating it to budgetary surplus or huge savings for the government.
“The figure may look good on paper, but what economic value does it have when no infrastructure is being built-no road, no bridge, no port, no highway-that could generate jobs and stimulate economic activity,” he said.
He also cited the DBM in its report the lower-than-programmed disbursements have been “mainly on account of deceleration in infrastructure spending” among other reasons.
“This deceleration in infrastructure spending is affecting even our schoolchildren who are forced to hold classes in overcrowded classrooms because of classroom shortage. No less than Education Secretary Armin Luisto said the Department of Education (DepEd) needs 66,800 classrooms for the school year 2011-2012,” Albano said.
The DepEd, which has a budget of P207.3 billion this year, allocated P11.3 billion for at least 9,000 classrooms, seats, and sanitation facilities. We want to know how much of the P11.3 billion was released prior to school opening to build additional classrooms,” he said.
Another disadvantage of deceleration in infrastructure spending is it could aggravate the unemployment problem.