Economic managers flag costs of federal charter
FINANCE Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III on Wednesday said he was left “confused” with the proposed federal charter following a meeting with members of the Consultative Committee (ConCom) to review the 1987 Constitution.
During the second day of the national budget briefing of the Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC) to the Senate on Wednesday, Mr. Dominguez said the draft charter did not clearly provide a road map on how to deal with the national debt, among others.
“The draft, as it is right now, does not lend itself for financial analysis. I’ll give you an example: I sat with members of the Commission and my first question was how will they see that the national debt will be paid, the military, the foreign affairs, central bank will be paid? They said, ‘Don’t worry about that, the split will be after the national — those expenses,’” he said, reiterating what he said Tuesday on the first day of the budget briefing.
“But I said it’s not in the draft. It’s not there. So I said, what are you telling me? How can we compute? We don’t know what the final road map is going to look like. So I had a long discussion with them. And quite frankly, I was more confused than when I started,” he added.
Asked by Senate Minority Leader Franklin M. Drilon if Mr. Dominguez will vote against the ratification of the draft Charter, the Finance Secretary gave a resounding reply: “Absolutely! Yes. But it is good that it is being discussed by the wise legislators. You have to bring out those points.”
At the briefing, senators quizzed the economic managers on the possible cost and impact of the shift to a federal form of government. Senator Francis G. Escudero questioned the funding of the information campaign on federalism when the proposed Charter remained a draft, being still subject to changes.
Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ernesto M. Pernia said the cost of federalism may be P120 billion, based on their estimates.
“But this is just a direct cost. Remember there will (be) indirect cost like disruption in the projects and other things, maybe our growth momentum will be disrupted also,” he said.