THE Department of Budget and Management (DBM) has expanded the coverage of Bottom-up Budgeting (BuB) project to some 1,590 cities and municipalities to allow more community leaders to engage in budget process for social services that create jobs and reduce poverty.
Budget Secretary Florencio B. Abad said the project is part of the public fiscal management reforms that allow stronger role for community leaders to identify specific areas of concern and allocate funds for poverty-reduction projects.
He said the projects under the BuB will include 14,300 poverty-reduction projects to be covered by the 2015 national budget.
“The administration is strengthening its commitment for a national budget that is more transparent, accountable and responsive to the needs of the Filipino people by further institutionalizing the implementation of BuB in FY 2016,” Abad said in a statement. He said the project has an approved budget worth P621,500 to be released to the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI). The funds will be distributed to the local government units (LGUs) to contribute to livelihood and employment. The DTI and LGUs will conduct trainings, and carry out monitoring and evaluating activities for the whole project.
Abad said the program aims to engage LGUs in antipoverty and basic public projects in their localities. Meanwhile, national agencies will focus on accelerating the overall execution of programs and projects that will reduce poverty and promote economic growth in more regions in the country.
“Ultimately, the objective of BuB is to develop the overall capacity of LGUs. Aside from delivering basic social services, they will also become income-generating hubs for growth that develop industries to provide jobs and livelihood for their people,” Abad said. Person Patrick Lim, who handles the DBM’s implementation of BuB, said the project aims to engage LGUs and communities to propose projects that are oriented toward filling these gaps at the community level.
“We want to realize a legacy of transforming a culture of patronage into a culture of empowerment, where people have a stake in the budget process,” Lim said.
He said the program has shown concrete results in communities’ relationship with their LGUs, especially in the poorer and less-privileged municipalities of the country.
One of the projects that illustrates this is the coco-coir twining project in Asuncion, Davao del Norte. The town has also implemented a water-supply project that transformed the lives of its people by improving the health and sanitation of communities. The budget chief said the project aims to develop the overall capacity of the LGUs “from delivering basic social services, they [LGUs] will also become income-generating hubs for growth that develop industries to provide jobs and livelihood for their people.”