P2-trillion 'empowerment budget' readied

MANILA, Philippines - President Aquino will submit the government’s P2.006-trillion national budget for 2013 to Congress tomorrow, a day after his third State of the Nation Address (SONA), Budget Secretary Florencio Abad disclosed yesterday.

Abad would deliver the Budget of Expenditures and Sources of Financing (BESF) on behalf of the President.

In a statement yesterday, Abad said the proposed empowerment budget would help reduce poverty incidence to 16.6 percent by 2016 from 26.5 percent in 2009.

“This proposed Empowerment Budget prioritizes funding for programs and projects that have impact in unshackling the poor from poverty and in reducing poverty incidence to 16.6 percent by 2016. President Aquino has directed us to take bold steps in closing key social service delivery gaps - in classrooms, teachers, health insurance subsidies, rural health facilities, etc. - by 2013,” he said.

The budgets for social services and economic services for 2013 of P1.210 trillion reflect the government’s 16.6 percent poverty threshold, Abad said.

According to the Department of Budget and Management, the proposed 2013 national budget consists of P1.251 trillion in programmed new appropriations. This, Abad said, would be used for national government operations, programs and projects.

Some P755.2 billion under automatic appropriations would be used for debt servicing, local government allocations, and others.

The government will seek legislative approval for P177.5 billion under unprogrammed appropriations or standby spending authority, which the national government can utilize when its revenues exceed targets.

With the early submission of the expenditure plan to Congress, the Aquino administration hopes an early enactment of the 2013 budget.

“Last year, the administration and Congress worked together to ensure that the 2012 budget becomes law by December 15, 2011, the earliest budget enactment since the restoration of our democracy. We look forward to repeating that historical feat,” Abad said.

“He (Aquino) also instructed us to build on our economic achievements so far, such as the 6.4-percent gross domestic product growth in the first quarter of 2012, by investing in the foundations of rapid, inclusive and sustained growth,” Abad related.

“With this, we are funding the attainment of rice self-sufficiency by next year; the pavement of all national roads by 2014 and all secondary roads by 2016, the arrival of 5.53 million tourists by next year and 10 million by 2016, among others,” he said.

In the last 12 years, the 2001 budget was submitted on 24 June 2000, as early as the 2013 proposal’s submission, but it was not enacted. Before the Aquino administration, the last budget to be enacted on time was the 1999 budget, signed into law on Dec. 30, 1998. - With Delon Porcalla