Aquino government to adopt no budget reenactment policy - Abad

MANILA, Philippines - Following the swift approval of the P1.645-trillion national budget for 2011 by Congress, the Aquino administration would adopt the policy against reenacting budgets, Budget Secretary Florencio Abad said.

“The new trend now is the early enactment of national budgets. We are shunning the convoluted and shadowy practice of reenacted budgets,” he said.

Abad stressed the 2011 reform budget will “pave the way for the succeeding budgets to be enacted on time.”

The budget for 2011 will be the first national allocation in the last 11 years that will be signed into law before the fiscal year starts.

President Aquino will sign the measure on Monday, Dec. 27.

Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. earlier said Abad has informed him that the President wanted to sign the budget on Dec. 27.

Abad hailed the House of Representatives and the Senate for the early ratification of the budget for 2011. He said the ratification will allow the President to sign the budget proposal into law before the year ends.

“Our legislators’ diligence and sense of duty made it possible for them to ratify the proposed 2011 reform budget as scheduled. The best way to express our gratitude to them is to fulfill our part, which is to have the President sign it into law before Dec. 30,” he said.

Once the executive receives the enrolled 2011 General Appropriations Bill shortly after it is ratified, it will take at least 10 days for the Department of Budget and Management to review and prepare a budget affirmation or veto message, if warranted, and print the budget for Aquino’s signing.

Abad stressed the early enactment of the budget allows the Aquino administration to have a good and early start in implementing its priority programs.

He said it would now be possible to frontload the implementation of government infrastructure programs to take advantage of good weather in the first semester.

Efforts to institute transparency and accountability in public expenditure management are bolstered by this development, he said.

“Congress did not only agree with our proposed spending levels for conditional cash transfers, basic education and maternal and child healthcare. They also supported our proposed measures to shed daylight on the disbursement of public funds,” Abad said.

Abad said the 2011 national budget is the first financial blueprint of the Aquino administration. “And we thank Congress for helping us have a spending program that is in line with fulfilling the (campaign) promise of ‘kung walang corrupt, walang mahirap’,” Abad said.