House to start budget deliberations this week

MANILA, Philippines - The House of Representatives will start committee deliberations this week on the proposed P2.606-trillion national budget for 2015 even as lawmakers continue to uncover what they called vague projects and provisions worth billions of pesos that are prone to corruption.

Members of the committee on appropriations, chaired by Davao City Rep. Isidro Ungab, will hear from the Development Budget Coordinating Committee composed of officials from the Departments of Budget and Management, Finance, National Economic and Development Authority, and Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas on Wednesday.

Several sub-committees would tackle in the coming weeks the proposed budgets of various departments and government offices. The House leadership aims to approve the proposed outlay by September.

Budget Secretary Florencio Abad earlier told reporters the government will borrow from local and international creditors to cover the estimated P283.7-billion budget deficit in 2015, which is approximately two percent of the projected Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the country for 2014.

Bayan Muna party-list Rep. Neri Colmenares however hit the planned borrowings, saying the country should learn from the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP), which the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional.

He said the Aquino government claimed that the P144-billion DAP were funds that the agencies were not able to spend and should be called savings.

“But if that is so, then why do we have to borrow money plus interest. To claim so much savings while borrowing hundreds of billions is terribly wrong,” Colmenares said. “The allocation of scarce resources should be efficient.”

He cited the case of the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC), which got a budget increase of P14 billion for next year.

“This (increase) means that there were less funds for health and education. If in the end, the DOTC is incapable of implementing its projects, this is P14 billion which could have been used in hospitals and building classrooms. This is very absurd and we oppose this kind of budgeting especially if it is accompanied by a budget deficit which will be funded by more loans,” he said.

Kabataan party-list Rep. Terry Ridon hit what he said were numerous dubiously named projects that comprise the bulk of the so-called P21-billion “Grassroots Participatory Budgeting (GPB)” process.

Ridon said there were numerous projects worth P500,000 to P1.5 million simply listed as “various road projects,” “various LGU projects,” or simply “various projects.”

He said worse, there are projects — like those in Cabuyao, Laguna, Alabat, Quezon and Malvar, Batangas — that are simply listed as “to be identified.”

There are also several cities and municipalities – including parts of Bohol, Aurora, Samar, and Nueva Ecija – that list multimillion-peso projects that are yet “to be identified,” he said.

“Budget Secretary Abad assured the public that the six-volume proposed 2015 budget contains detailed projects that have been properly itemized and identified. But what in the world are ‘to be identified’ projects? How will Congress scrutinize such allocations?” Ridon said, adding that approving funding for unidentified projects is “counter-intuitive.”

“If you (Abad) think we would not read the fine print, you are wrong. We know that the devil is in the details, and as early as now, your schemes are being exposed one by one,” he said.

The lawmaker earlier warned against the GPB for being “highly vulnerable to corruption” and containing a “DAP-like” provision that enables local government officials to cancel and replace projects already indicated in the annual General Appropriations Act (GAA).

Ridon said the GPB makes use of “Napoles-like NGOs” to be implemented.

The LGU projects are on top of the P501-billion “Special Purpose Funds” for 2015, which include a P2.9-billion Local Government Support Fund. The funds are lump sums whose appropriations are not itemized, the lawmaker said.

Sen. Francis Escudero revealed yesterday that the Senate would likely put aside the hearings on the controversial DAP to pave way for deliberations on the 2015 proposed national budget.

Escudero, chairman of the Senate finance committee, said he and his colleagues can pursue questions about DAP directly to heads of concerned government agencies during the budget hearings.

The finance committee held one hearing on the DAP last week, where Secretary Abad led Cabinet officials in explaining how the spending initiative was meant to stimulate the economy. – With Christina Mendez