CIVIL-SOCIETY groups launched on Monday a People’s Initiative that seeks to gather 6 million signatures in a petition calling for the passage of a law that abolishes lump sums in the national budget.
Budget Secretary Florencio B. Abad justified the existence of P48.1 billion in lump sums in the proposed P2.606 trillion 2015 budget.
Abad said the lump sums, or the Special Purpose Funds, are a small portion of the lump sum items that can be disaggregated during the implementation of the General Appropriations Act, including P14 billion for the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management fund and the P2 billion contingency fund.
“Items that are strictly lump sums represent only 1.8 percent of total SPFs [special-purpose funds]. The nature of these lump sum items is that they are impossible to disaggregate or break down into specific items until the budget is actually implemented,” Abad said in a news statement.
He said that in the case of calamity and contingency funds, the funds cannot be appropriated right away as there are still no allocations needed.
“It would make no sense to break down the funds during the budget preparations. You cannot foretell where the next calamity or disaster will hit, and you can’t foresee how much will be required to rehabilitate or restore normalcy to affected regions,” Abad said.
A coalition of civil-society groups, led by the Abolish Pork Movement gathered at the Rizal Park in Manila on Monday during the National Heroes Day celebration to gather 6 million signatures for a people’s initiative to pass a law that would prohibit all lump-sum items in the national budget.
“The People’s Initiative bill abolishes all forms of pork barrel, mandates line-item budgeting, prohibits and criminalizes allocation and use of lump-sum discretionary funds, and penalizes violators with six years and one day to 10 years of imprisonment and disqualification from holding public office,” the group said in a statement on Monday.