Senate starts debates on proposed 2018 budget

The Senate has begun its plenary debates on the proposed P3.767trillion national budget for 2018, with Sen. Panfilo Lacson raising several issues about the bill including the presence of “pork”-like items, duplications and a perpetual river rehabilitation project.

At the start of the debates yesterday, Lacson first raised the issue of underspending of various government agencies, which he noted was at P596.6 billion in 2016.

Lacson said he sees underspending as akin to a criminal act, since it does not only deprive the people of the services they deserve, but is also a failure by the concerned agencies to implement the general appropria- tions act.

The government could have grown at a rate of 10 percent instead of 6.8 percent in 2016, using gross domestic product as basis, if the various government agencies were able to utilize all of their funds efficiently, according to the senator.

The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) and the Department of Education (DepEd) were the agencies that recorded the most unused funds in 2016.

Poor planning, procurement issues and other implementation bottlenecks were cited by Sen. Loren Legarda as the reasons for underspending.

To help address the issue, a special provision was included by the Senate in the budget proposal that would require all government agencies with infrastructure projects to post on their official websites the status of such projects, including geo-tagged photos, contractors’ names, project cost and location, and start and target date of completion.

Budget sans lavishness

Legarda, chairman of the Senate committee on finance, sponsored the proposed General Appropriations Act (GAA) for 2018 on the floor, saying it was “a budget trimmed of the lavish, and therefore, unneeded, decorative furniture in a house meant for 104.9 million (Filipinos) but which, unfortunately, accommodates only a few.”

“It is a budget where we made room and space to keep those who are in the cold, warm; to feed those who are hungry and dispossessed; a budget that reduces enmity and restores the peace; a budget that is transparent,” Legarda said.

Some P523.568 billion of the proposed budget will by financed by borrowings, of which 80 percent will be domestically sourced while 20 percent will come from international creditors, according to the senator.

She added that 84 percent, of the total disbursements will be sourced from both tax and non-tax revenues amounting to P2.841 trillion.