Lacson, groups help ne-tune P5-trillion budget

WITH a boost from Sen. Panfilo “Ping” M. Lacson, civil society groups managed to help scrutinize and make the P5.024-trillion proposed budget for 2022 more responsive to people’s needs.

Social Watch Philippines and the Alternative Budget Initiative wrote to Lacson on Nov. 10, thanking him for endorsing their participation in the Senate Finance Committee hearings on the budget.

“We hope that you will continue to support our inclusive budget proposals that focus on the needs of the country’s most marginalized sectors, especially since they are the ones that were most affected by the pandemic, by sponsoring before the plenary deliberations and incorporating into the good Senator’s budgetary amendments to the FY 2022 General Appropriations Bill,” co-convenors Rene Raya, Ma. Victoria Raquiza and Jessica Cantos said in a letter to Lacson.

They also commended Lacson, who is running for President, for all his efforts in serving the country, as well as for believing in what Social Watch Philippines-Alternative Budget Initiative stands for.

Earlier, Lacson endorsed the SWPABI’s participation in the committee hearings of the Senate finance committee chaired by Sen. Juan Edgardo Angara on the budget bill.

Lacson also supported their “Budget Serye sa Senado” discussion on the budget, where he delivered the message that the pandemic underscores the need for an inclusive national budget.

Meanwhile, corruption issues will not stick to Partido Reporma chairman and standard-bearer Lacson or his family because he has hammered an ethos of fairness and responsibility to them, especially his sons Jay and Panfilo Jr. or “Pampi.”

In the second webisode of his “iPing TV” series on his YouTube channel Ping Lacson, the longtime senator recalled a case of supposed cement smuggling against Pampi. Macon Ramos-Araneta