2017 budget gives more to areas outside Metro Manila

MANILA, Philippines – Lawmakers allied with President Duterte assured the public yesterday of more positive changes in the bureaucracy with the final approval of the government’s P3.3-trillion national budget for 2017. 

“This pro-Filipino budget will truly bring us one step closer to achieving the President’s mantra of change,” Davao City Rep. Karlo Alexei Nograles, chairman of the House appropriations committee, said. “Now we can say that greater change is coming in 2017.”

 Nograles said the signing of the General Appropriations Act of 2017 “marks the dawning of a new day for the country.”

“We could expect to see a full bright new day ahead for all of us Filipinos,” he said.

 Camarines Sur Rep. LRay Villafuerte, vice chairman of the same committee, said the 2017 budget is a “truly inclusive one that could be felt by Filipinos not only in imperial Manila, but also across the country’s regions.”

 “This will serve as the catalyst that would finally spread the benefits of high growth outside imperial Manila and other urban centers, given the huge allocation to local government units of close to P500 billion in Internal Revenue Allotment,” Villafuerte said.

  Next year’s GAA allocation of P486.9 billion for IRA, which corresponds to the 40 percent share of LGUs in national internal revenue taxes, represents a 13.6 percent increase from the previous year’s IRA share of P428.62 billion.

 Villafuerte noted that the IRA’s increase is even much higher than the growth of the 2017 GAA of 11.6 percent. 

“The significant hike in the budget for LGUs best illustrates the Duterte administration’s commitment to its 10-point socioeconomic agenda of spreading growth and creating quality, decent-paying jobs for our countrymen living outside Metro Manila,” he said. 

 Rep. Mark Aeron Sambar of the Puwersa ng Bayaning Atleta (PBA) party-list, vice chairman of the House appropriations panel, lauded Duterte for signing the General Appropriations Act of 2017.

 “We are really thankful for this early Christmas present from President Digong. I am confident that these appropriations would be fully utilized for the benefit of our citizenry,” Sambar said.