Palace to submit P1.137-T ‘payback’ budget

Malacañang is set to submit to Congress today its proposed P1.137-trillion national budget for 2007, which is 7.9 percent or P83.3 billion higher than the virtually rejected 2006 budget.

"Well, it’s payback time," Budget Secretary Rolando Andaya Jr. said yesterday. "After the people had sacrificed paying additional taxes, it is now time for us to give back to the people what is due them in terms of government service."

Andaya said the proposed expenditure program will include the P10.3-billion budget for the standardization of state workers’ salaries, which will be presented to Congress in October as a separate bill.

He disclosed that President Arroyo has ordered that infrastructure and basic education be prioritized in line with her administration’s thrust of pump priming the economy and increasing spending on social services.

The proposed 2007 outlay, however, will contain the controversial appropriations earlier opposed by senators.

The government is currently operating on a reenacted P907-billion 2005 budget as senators refused to approve this year’s budget due to controversial provisions such as the P5-billion Kilos Asenso Support Fund and the P3 billion allotted to the Kalayaan Barangay Program.

Andaya said all expense class appropriations will increase except for debt service, which would go down for the first time in six years, from P340 billion this year to P318.2 billion in 2007, or a decrease of 6.4 percent.

Under the expense class, personal services would take up 31.7 percent or P356.8 billion; maintenance and other operating expenses, 13.4 percent or P150.8 billion; capital outlays, 10.4 percent or 116.6 billion; Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA) to local government units (LGUs), 16.3 percent or P183.9 billion; and interest payments, 28.2 percent or P318.2 billion.

Consistent with the constitutional mandate, the Department of Education (DepEd) will get the highest budgetary allocation of P134.7 billion, which is 13.1 percent higher than the proposed allocation of P119.1 billion in the 2006 budget.

The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) got the second highest budget of P73.6 billion, or 18 percent higher the amount proposed this year. — Paolo Romero