BUDGET BROUHAHA NO MORE?

It has only been about four months since we heard the wrangling over the national budget.

It was a bit gory, one might say, because it got politicians entangled in word-wrestling for a time, indulging us with blatant views of human avarice (or what appeared like it).

And so, it came to pass that government operated on a reenactment of the 2018 budget from January this year until the 2019 budget was signed last April.

As projected (not that it seemed to stop anyone from taking their sweet time going through the process of approval), the delay slowed spending and dragged lower gross domestic product growth in the first half of the year.

Now that we have the national budget on the table once more, will the public get another painful round of the game of tug of war?

For Senator Ping Lacson, it is not the pulling game that budget talks should be

likened to — it is hide-and-seek.

Once more, he raised the red flag over potential “pork” that could be inserted somehow into the funds meant for various public services.

The kitty, after all, is bigger than ever.

This month, the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) submitted to Congress a proposed P4.1 trillion national budget for 2020, moving, as it should, to ensure its timely passage.

Reports say the 2020 budget proposal includes “P166.5 billion for Universal Health Care, P108.8 billion for the 4Ps or conditional cash transfers for the poor, P70.6 billion to develop the newly-created Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, P10 billion for rice farmers’ assistance and P641.6 million for the initial operations of the Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development.”

Education, infrastructure, transport and health get the bulk of the proposed budget, which is 12 percent higher than that of the previous year’s P3.662 trillion.

In his budget message recently, President Rodrigo Duterte said next year’s spending plan “will aim to build on the fruits and gains of the previous annual expenditure programs.”

Presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo in a statement on 6 August expounded: “This budget proposal is designed to respond to the needs of the majority of our countrymen longing to be uprooted from decades of want of basic necessities, inadequate supply of basic services, lack of infrastructure required to spur economic growth, absence of accountability on government coffers, vexing bureaucratic rigmarole, deprived education and unchanged poverty.”

It sounds beautiful, and hope springs eternal. Even Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano seems optimistic that the series of hearings and discussions will flow smoother this time around.

“We will work day and night,” Cayetano said in a report, citing the Executive department’s “stronger” ties with the House.

He also assured the contentious “pork barrel” will be a “thing of the past.” Discretionary funds are, thus, understandably getting close scrutiny. For example, the increases in the budget proposals from both the Office of the President (OP) and Office of the Vice President (OVP) have gotten much mileage lately.

The OP has allotted P2.25 billion each for its confidential and intelligence expenses, totaling P4.5 billion, almost twice the amounts for last year and this year.

The OVP, for its part, proposes a budget that is around P2 million higher than this year’s budget of P671.55 million for its anti-poverty programs. As for the various departments and all offices of our lawmakers and solons, budgets have also no doubt increased. The people of the Philippines must dig deep into their accomplishments and expenditures in the previous year, but sadly it seems we don’t have easy access to these in spite of transparency provisions from the DBM.

The Budget department’s Transparency Seal provision, section 93 of the National Budget Circular 542, issued on 29 August 2012, aims to ensure that people can access information on their official websites.

The transparency seal, it says, shall contain information including “their respective approved budgets and corresponding targets… major programs and projects… the program/projects beneficiaries as identified in the applicable special provisions; status of implementation and program/project evaluation and/or assessment reports; and annual procurement plan, contracts awarded and the name of contractors/suppliers/consultants. The respective heads of the agencies shall be responsible for ensuring compliance with this section.”

Such transparency seal should also be prominently displayed on the main page of the website of a particular government agency. It is up to us and the watchdogs to see if the budgets really go where they should.

“The

people of the Philippines must dig deep into their accomplishments and expenditures in the previous year, but sadly it seems we don’t have easy access to these in spite of transparency provisions from the DBM.

“Education, infrastructure, transport and health get the bulk of the proposed budget, which is 12 percent higher than that of the previous year’s P3.662 trillion.