AS the threat of a bird flu hovers above the region, the Department of Budget and Management said Monday that a P122.8-million “bird flu” fund in the soon-to-be-signed national  budget for 2007 will be made  available to the Department  of Agriculture for surveillance and quarantine

Budget Secretary Rolando Andaya Jr. said the amount will allow five agencies led by the DA to implement the country’s Avian Influenza Protection Program (AIPP).

Based on the work program the DA submitted to the DBM, the AIPP will focus on active surveillance of   migratory risk areas, strengthening of laboratories, building up rapid-action capability, quarantine, disease investigation and mapping.

The anti-bird flu blueprint designates the DA to coordinate with the Health, Environment and Natural Resources, Trade and Industry, and Local Government departments in keeping the country avian flu-free.

The DoH had also earlier drafted a 91-page bird flu response plan that spells out action to be taken on “four danger-level scenarios.”

Central to the plan is the dissemination of the right information to the public and the education of all government personnel tasked to respond to any contingency.

Andaya said the release of the bird- flu fund will be calibrated based on actual needs “and once the P1.126- trillion national budget is signed into law by the President.”

The Budget chief said other items in the budget, “the Calamity Fund, for example, can be tapped if avian-flu expenditures, in the event it lands here, although we hope it would not, exceeds the P122-million bird-flu fund.”

Andaya made the assurance as an avian-flu outbreak hitting several European countries and nearby Indonesia prompted queries from local poultry farmers if there is a fund allocation this year to prevent the entry of that disease to the country.

Such concern is warranted as poultry-growing is a P110-billion-a-year industry in the Philippines, reports state.

Meanwhile, President Arroyo said on Monday she would have maintained the target for a balanced budget in 2010 and not in 2008, had it not been recommended by her economic managers, to further boost spending.

The President said in an interview after her televised roundtable conference that she yielded to the wisdom of her economic managers, who advanced the target year for a balanced budget next year, and will stick to the new target.

“Our MTP says the budget will be balanced in 2010. Our economic managers say that it could be balanced by 2008, but I will still keep the balanced budget at 2008, only in deference to them. But I would rather have made it 2010 because we should spend money,” she said.

She said she shared the belief of her economic adviser, Albay Rep. Joey Salceda, “to stop going for more than what the market wants...and spend the money rather than trying to make the budget balanced earlier.” The President tried to push for more spending over a smaller deficit this year, when her economic managers tried to stick to a P125-billion deficit target, but ended with a P62.2-billion deficit because the government operated on a reenacted budget, among other factors.

Salceda, who was at the roundtable conference, said that achieving a balanced budget next year is “easy,” for as long as four factors are present: an adequately-funded superregions program which would lower the cost of doing business, good revenues, direct social policy initiatives like Philhealth, and market access agreements such as the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement.

“With these four combined, the President can achieve a balanced budget even if she spends a lot on infrastructure,” he said.

Sen. Edgardo Angara, who was also at the conference, said tax reform measures such as the harmonization of fiscal and nonfiscal incentives would plug a P300-billion revenue leak.

On the strengthening peso, Socioeconomic Secretary Romulo Neri said the government will not consider imposing capital controls as what the Thai Central Bank had done, and would address the matter “through market forces.”

He said the government reduced its borrowings abroad and increased its local borrowings, prepaid $223 million to the International Monetary Fund, and is liberalizing the outflow of funds.

“In other words we’re doing it through market forces rather than through capital restrictions,” he said.

THE government has once again declared the bidding for the 25-year concession of the National Transmission Corp. (Transco) a failure after only one of three prequalified bidders submitted a bid.

THE Senate ratified Monday night a bicameral conference committee report on a proposed remedial legislation granting a one-time amnesty on certain tax and duty liabilities incurred by investor-locators in special economic zones subsequently created outside the Subic freeport.

THERE are potential risks of a financial crisis arising from the inadequacy of regulatory oversight over the activities of financial conglomerates (FCs), mostly universal banks, operating in the country, a financial market policy group said Monday.

THERE are no difficult barriers for government to target and actually achieve higher levels of growth with positive factors propping the local economy, a noted economist said on Monday.

AS the threat of a bird flu hovers above the region, the Department of Budget and Management said Monday that a P122.8-million “bird flu” fund in the soon-to-be-signed national  budget for 2007 will be made  available to the Department  of Agriculture for surveillance and quarantine

ONLY around half the country’s savings actually get invested in productive undertakings but even then, the little set aside by Filipino savers helps expand the economy by more than 5 percent every year, the Department of Finance reported on Monday.

FIRST Pacific Co. Ltd. of Hong Kong did not yield its right to match the P25.2-billion bid of a Singaporean company for the government’s slightly over 46 percent stake in Philippine Telecommunications Investment Corp. (PTIC).