House approves 2015 budget

MANILA, Philippines - The House of Representatives will tighten its oversight over the national budget to ensure that public funds are properly spent and not lost to corruption, Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. has assured the public.

“I welcome the resurgence of the legislative will for budget oversight that we have seen in action these past months. It is a sign that we are strengthening our institutional muscle to make this government work better, and to ensure that public resources are allocated more effectively for the welfare of our people,” he said after the House approved on second reading the proposed P2.606-trillion General Appropriations Act (GAA) before midnight Friday.

“This brings us closer to ensuring the enactment of the 2015 budget law before the end of the current fiscal year so that the dangers of a re-enacted budget will not deprive our people of the services they need,” he added.

Since Congress is taking a recess starting Monday, the House is expected to approve the proposed GAA on third and final reading when it resumes session next month.

Belmonte said lawmakers have been criticized in the past months, but the budget bill’s approval had shown they are “public servants first and last.”

He said budget deliberations were “exceedingly spirited and incisive.”

He said House members disagreed on issues that affect the nation, but their “collective strength… springs from their willingness to set aside their differences, and find the avenues of cooperation, compromise and consensus, to serve the people the best they can at any particular point in time.”

In an interview with reporters, Belmonte said they invited members of the minority and independent bloc to create a public accounts and audit committee to call and ask to account national government agencies, local government units, government-owned and controlled corporations, and other government entities on the use of their funds, and undertake legislative action to improve transparency of government operations.

Belmonte stressed that Congress holds both the power of the purse and the power of legislative oversight.

The proposed GAA is 15.1 percent higher than this year’s P2.265-trillion budget, representing 18.4 percent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), and reflects an increase in the country’s growth assumption of 7.0 to 8.0 percent for 2014.

Social protection and welfare services, which include the provision of basic education and universal health care, account for 37.1 percent of the proposed expenditure program or P967.9 billion.

A total of P700.2 billion for economic services was allocated, equivalent to 4.9 percent of the country’s GDP and accounts for 27 percent of the expenditure program for 2015. At least P339.4 billion will fund various infrastructure projects, including the construction of national roads and integrated transport systems nationwide, according to the Department of Budget and Management.

The top 10 departments with the biggest budget are: Department of Education, P364.958 billion; Department of Public Works and Highways, P300.519 billion; Department of National Defense, P144.036 billion; Department of the Interior and Local Government, P141.423 billion; Department of Social Welfare and Development, P108.970 billion; Department of Health, P102.178 billion; Department of Agriculture, P88.818 billion; Department of Transportation and Communications, P59.463 billion, and Department of Environment and Natural Resources, P21.290 billion.

‘Pork-laden, graft-prone’

Kabataan party-list Rep. Terry Ridon expressed concern that the proposed budget was “laden with hidden pork, lump sums, and back alleys for realignment of funds.”

He said the Makabayan bloc found “many black holes, quasars, and nebulas of corruption-prone provisions and appropriations. When the majority said yes to the budget, they said yes to an expanded Aquino dictatorship.”

He cited a new savings provision that he claims legalizes the Disbursement Acceleration Program along with the Grassroots Participatory Budgeting, a “fatter” Conditional Cash Transfer Program, the P1.4-billion “black budget” and the “essentially untouched lump-sum funds.”