DUTERTE administration officials heading various executive departments and agencies were asked to itemize “huge” lump-sum allocations proposed to be funded in the P3.35-trillion 2017 national budget bill that the Palace had earlier endorsed for congressional scrutiny and approval.
For instance, Senate Minority Leader Ralph G. Recto cited what he described as “one vague big-ticket item which is a good candidate for elaboration” is found under a so-called P30-billion risk-management program “tucked in the P67.5-billion unprogrammed fund in the budget proposal submitted to Congress.”
“What is this? Will it be used to pay for contingent debts associated with PPP [public-private partnership] projects?,” Recto asked, pointing out it did not even list down which companies would be paid and that “not even the amounts allotted for each one are listed.”
Decrying that the item proposed to be funded was “bereft of details,” Recto said: “This is a classic blank-check appropriation.”
In a news statement, Recto reported he already notified Cabinet secretaries and other agency heads called to appear before the budget hearings of the Senate Finance Committee, chaired by Sen. Loren B. Legarda, “to be ready to itemize lump sums in their budgets.”
To facilitate the budget review, Recto recommended that the heads of agencies “break down block allocations,” saying this will “result in faster completion of projects, make their implementation more transparent and inform the people of progress coming their way.”
The senator lamented that failure to itemize some lump sums is the “main culprit” why past projects were delayed in the transportation and education sectors, among others. “In part, our recent experience with underspending was a result of the absence of a detailed listing of projects,” Recto said.
Recalling reports that government underspending amounted to P623 billion from 2011 to 2014, Recto reminded agencies slated to get huge unitemized allocations “to expect senators…to ask you to break down such lump sums.”
“As they say, the budget is in the details,” he stressed, noting “specifics are as important as the bottom line.”
At the same time, Recto acknowledged that, while “lump sums in the hundreds of billions dot the budget, many of these—like the P37.2 billion proposed for the calamity fund, or the P142.3 billion recommended for the pension and gratuity fund—cannot be fully itemized.”
He conceded the impossibility of predicting how many typhoons will hit the country and how many people will be victimized, adding, as well, that allocations for retirement funds are, likewise, hard to project, given that “no one can say how many government employees will die next year.”
The Senate Minority Leader insisted, however, that among the “huge lump sums which can and should be itemized” are those for classroom construction, right-of-way of national roads, social protection, farm projects.”
He mentioned that the proposed P36.4-billion subsidy to the National Irrigation Administration (NIA) as “a prime example” of a funding item that Recto said “cries out for itemization.”
“The NIA should be ready to explain where these irrigation systems will be built or repaired, the exact places and the number of hectares,” the senator said.
Recto also cited the so-called peace-and-order expenditures, asserting that “it is also but right for frightened taxpayers to demand where new policemen to be hired will be assigned and new police cars will be sent.”
At the same time, Recto commended the Department of Health’s (DOH) listing “in 27 pages of fine print the thousands of health centers and hospitals” that will be improved under the proposed P21.9-billion Health Facilities Enhancement Program, even as he noted the same itemization eluded the P16-billion medicine budget for 2017. “We will demand how much each health facility will get for medicines next year and that is a very reasonable demand,” he said.