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SEN.
Juan Ponce Enrile confirmed the Senate has restored
P12.1 billion of the P17-billion House cuts in automatic
appropriations for debt service tucked in the
Palace-proposed 2008 budget bill because of fears the
country could be “paralyzed” if foreign lenders invoke
cross-default provisions in the loan agreements should
government fail to meet its debt obligations.
Appearing at the weekly Kapihan sa Senado media forum,
Enrile reported the House of Representatives slashed at
least P17.8 billion in debt service from the budget and
realigned the amount to other items.
“But I
am not willing to risk, to take that kind of a risk, for
the country, Because there are cross-default provisions
in our loan agreements,” Enrile told the forum. “If we
are going to declare certain types of loans as valid
areas where we exercise the discretion whether to pay
them or not…if you don’t pay, that is a default.”
“And
once you default, the creditors who are backed up by
their governments can now invoke the cross-default
provision; in this case the country might be paralyzed,”
he added.
Instead,
Enrile said the chamber agreed to just cut or
redistribute some parts of the debt service allocations
“to what we consider to be the need of the nation” but
not the entire amount of P17.8 billion. “What we did is
that we restored P12.1 billion, and retained P5.7
billion as cut, or as the amount that was redistributed
[to other budgetary items].”
He said
the redistributed amount went to “education, school
building program, additional teachers, additional school
supplies like desks, and so forth and so on.”
Then, he
added, “we also provided for programs to alleviate the
plight of our prisoners. They are the most marginalized
members of society. They’ve lost their freedom, for one
reason or another, but nonetheless we have to keep them
humanely. We increased the food supply of all prisoners,
whether in the national prison or in the provincial city
jails, by 33.3 percent. From P40 per day, we made it
P60. Then we granted all of these prisoners an
additional P3 a day for medical supplies and service.
It’s a modest amount but, at least, it could be used to
help them.”
Enrile
added the Senate also reallocated some items for health
improvement programs as well as funding for irrigation,
farm to market roads, among others.
At the
same time, Enrile confirmed the so-called Kilos Asenso
program, a Palace pet project allotted with P3 billion,
contained no funding authority for charter change
(cha-cha) schemes that have been roundly rejected by
senators.
“That’s
not for cha-cha. There is a special provision there
about the use of the [Kilos Asenso] fund. Should they
use it for cha-cha, they could be imprisoned,” warned
Enrile, adding that the Senate finance committee, under
its mandate, can call any government office involved to
explain “if there is any indication of venality of the
use of the fund.” |
