Sec. Abad: Budgeting more tedious this year

CEBU, Philippines - Budget Secretary Florencio “Butch” Abad has informed the members of the Regional Development Council in Central Visayas that the budget process this year is more “tedious.”

Abad appeared at the RDC-7 Full Council meeting in Cebu City yesterday to relay to the members the priorities of the 2015 budget of the administration to give recommendation on how to make effective budget proposals.

“It’s going to be a more tedious process this time around because we, as early as this year, have moved into what is called performance-informed budgeting,” Abad stressed.

Abad explained that unlike in the past where the budget was really a jumble of numbers, this time around, for the money that they are requesting in Congress, they will have to show not just inputs but also outputs.

“That’s why I said it could be a little bit more tedious, we are requiring the agencies to present to us outcomes of their agencies,” Abad said.

Abad has emphasized that the budgeting is structured based on the priorities set both in terms of sectoral priorities as well as geographical concerns, otherwise it may not get the attention it requires.

He also presented four basic thrust in the budgeting which include the investment on social protection and social services; basic education; public health; and livelihood and employment generations.

Abad said that the principal vehicle for the social protection and services is the cash conditional transfer (CCT) program.

This year, the government is targeting 4.3 million households with added innovation to ensure kids not only graduate from elementary but from high school.

With the additional P12 billion, the CCT program now stands at P62 billion and it will grow up by P5.2 billion in 2015.

“By the end of 2015, we should have covered all the poor families as indentified under the National Households Targeting Survey,” Abad said.

Abad said that they are also trying to meet the requirements of classrooms and teachers of all the districts and provinces.

The budget of the Department of Health is raised to P90 billion for this year from P30 billion.

Abad said this is because of the commitment to spend proceeds from the sin taxes for public health.

“This year, we have been able to invest P35.3 billion to cover 14.7 million poor households which will cover the extreme poor, subsistence poor and near poor,” he said.

The government is investing P13 billion for health facilities, rehabilitation and improvements for barangay health centers, rural health districts, provincial and regional hospitals.

For employment and livelihoods, Abad said that by the end of this year, rehabilitating and paving of arterial national roads should be finished as well as the national secondary roads and bridges by the end of 2015.

“If that happens, then we now have space to look at local infrastructures,” Abad said.

He reported that the government is also investing in sea ports and airports especially in the identified tourism zones, including the conversion of certain airports with night landing capabilities to decongest Ninoy Aquino International Airport.

There are 52 municipal fish ports all over the country for development.

He said that the Department of Public Works and Highways is tasked to build and has prescribed the dimensions of the farm-to-market roads so that it will now just build anywhere.

Abad declared that the budget is going to focus on the four areas of priorities and the government is going to spend P2.3 trillion next year.

“If you are in the process of determining your priorities, I would recommend that you align your priorities especially the strategic regional priorities along those four thrust and following those sectoral as well as geographical priorities,” Abad said.

Abad further announced that next budget shall be submitted on July 22, 2014, a day after the State of the Nation Address of President Benigno Aquino III.  (FREEMAN)