Senate approves 2017 budget
THE SENATE approved on Monday, Nov. 28, the P3.5trillion proposed budget for 2017, with almost half of the funds to be appropriated to social services, the chamber noted in a statement that day.
The budget was unanimously approved on third reading by 20 senators with no one abstaining.
The Department of Education (Deped) and the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) get the lion’s share of the budget at P1.420 trillion, or approximately 40% of the proposed budget.
The Dep Ed and its attached agencies will receive P546.62 billion for the construction of classrooms, employment of teachers and procurement of other educational needs.
The DPWH will get P443.76 billion for infrastructure spending, one of the main thrusts of the Duterte administration’s 10-point socioeconomic agenda.
With an allocation of P155.15 billion, the Department of Health (DOH) would receive the third highest budget after the Senate added funds to the department’s various offices and programs, including a P3-billion increase in the Philhealth insurance budget.
Rounding out the top six departments with the highest allocated budget are the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) with P147.58 billion, Department of National Defense (DND) with P135.04 billion, and the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) with P128.31 billion.
More than half of the DSWD budget would be used to fund the conditional cash transfer (CCT) program. Approximately 4.4 million eligible beneficiaries would be targeted by the P78.2-billion CCT allocation.
To curb underspending and to fully utilize the allocated funds, the Senate budget set a provision that would impose a one-year appropriation availability time frame.
“[This is meant] to install a sense of urgency among government agencies in utilizing their budget to the last peso,” said Senate committee on Finance Chairperson Loren B. Legarda.
“Underspending simply means missed opportunities,” Ms. Legarda said. “We wish to encourage that we all work together and provide people what is due to them.”
Last month, the House of Representatives approved on second reading the proposed P 3.35trillion 2017 national budget.
Under the House-approved budget, the highest appropriations go to the Dep Ed, DPWH, DILG, DND, DSWD and Doh in that order.
Both houses of Congress will convene as a bicameral conference committee to reconcile their differences in the proposed budget, which will then be submitted to Malacañang.