This pertains to the news article entitled, “Congress increases Leni’s budget by P216 million,” written by Jess Diaz and published in the Philippine STAR on March 24. Please allow us to clarify the following details regarding the recommended FY 2019 budget of the Office of the Vice President (OVP) referred to in the article:
1. P12 million rentals – The OVP has always rented office space as it has not been accorded with a permanent office building since its establishment under the 1987 Constitution.
Similar with the set up under the former Vice President, the rental expenses of the OVP pertain to two offices – the Quezon City Reception House as the main office and the office space at the Ben-Lor Building as the extension office. There is no “another mansion” for the security team.
The annual rental expenses for the main office amounts to P3.9512 million. Compared to the Coconut Palace, rental expense for the main office under Vice President Robredo decreased by 36 percent from P5.280 million to P3.360 million during the first year of the lease. The remaining balance of the recommended budget level for the rental expenses covers the extension office, which was relocated from the PNB Financial Center in Pasay City to a bigger and more conducive office space at Ben-lor Building in Quezon City. Most importantly, the new office location provides client-friendly space for the beneficiaries of the OVP’s Social Services Program through our public assistance desk.
2. P33 million for consultants – Only P14 million has been proposed for consultants, not P33 million.
3. P216 million financial assistance / subsidy fund or “pork barrel”
The financial assistance I subsidy fund referred to will go to the Subsidies Local Government Unit account of the office’s Good Governance Program for Locally Funded Projects (LFP). This only amounts to P200 million.
The LFP was first included in the OVP budget in FY 2018, due to the initiative of the Senate. Upon finding out that the OVP relies on private donors for its anti-poverty initiatives under the Angat Buhay program, the Senate offered to increase the budget for the OVP’s Social Services Program.
Previous administrations only covered medical and burial assistance under the Social Services Program. The introduction of the LFP enabled the OVP to expand the coverage of the program, allowing the office to extend assistance to LGUs with projects related to the Angat Buhay advocacy areas (i.e. food security and nutrition, universal healthcare, public education, housing and resettlement, rural development, and women empowerment). The support is done on a needs basis, through grassroots participatory mechanisms and consistent with empowering local governments to fully realize their devolved social service delivery functions.
To highlight one of our projects under this initiative, a Psychiatric Acute Care Facility was recently constructed in partnership with the local government of San Remigio in Cebu. The LGU’s dedication to this initiative began in the aftermath of Supertyphoon Yolanda in 2013, after some of its residents were found chained and locked away by their families due to their mental health conditions. Since then, the LGU has actively included mental health in its programs-and identified this cause as a priority when it joined our Bridging Leadership Program under Angat Buhay. To assist the town in this endeavor, the OVP funded the said construction of a mental health facility through the LFP, to cater to residents with various mental health conditions.
We hope that this sufficiently clarifies the abovementioned details of our FY 2019 budget. – Usec Philip Francisco U. Dy, Chief of Staff, Office of the Vice President of the Philippines