DSWD budget deliberation stalled anew

MANILA, Philippines - Approval of the proposed P34.3-billion budget of the Department of Social Welfare of Development (DSWD) remains stalled in the House of Representatives over the agency’s controversial P21-billion conditional cash transfer (CCT) program.

Plenary debates on the DSWD’s budget were rescheduled today after there were too many interpellators or lawmakers wanting to question the agency’s budget.

Deliberations on the agency’s budget began and ended on Tuesday but the questioning dragged until Wednesday midnight and was halted as discussions on the proposed budgets of other agencies were being sidelined.

It started when former president and now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo questioned the huge P21-billion CCT allocation, saying the DSWD is not capable of implementing the project at such scale due to lack of preparation.

The CCT entails giving 2.3 million poor households all over the country a maximum of P1,400 in subsidies monthly.

More lawmakers were allowed to interpellate Guimaras Rep. Rahman Nava, the sponsor of the agency’s budget.

Arroyo and scores of other lawmakers said the huge outlay should be realigned to other services like education that would be more beneficial and have lasting impact.

While some 52 lawmakers — spearheaded by Bayan Muna party-list — have signed a resolution calling for the scrapping of the P21-billion outlay, another party-list group, Akbayan, announced yesterday that it has gathered 100 signatures in support of the CCT.

Akbayan party-list Rep. Walden Bello also turned the tables on Mrs. Arroyo, saying she committed “highway robbery” by putting in P2.2 billion in her district alone in the proposed 2011 budget.

Bello’s group was previously against the CCT program, calling it “dole-outs.”

Mrs. Arroyo’s spokesperson, Elena Bautista-Horn, however, clarified that the P2.2-billion allocation was mostly foreign-funded infrastructure projects from Japan and South Korea that included highways, bridges and flood-control projects that would benefit other provinces.

She said the projects were actually continuation of public works since the Ramos administration due to the destructive eruption of Mt. Pinatubo. — With Perseus Echeminada, Reinir Padua, Delon Porcalla, Roel Pareño, Marvin Sy