PROF. Leonor Magtolis-Briones, former national treasurer and Social Watch convener, urged senators who are currently deliberating on the P2.606-trillion budget to look at the pork-barrel funds embedded in agency allocations, saying that only P599.7 billion will be left for Congress to scrutinize.
Briones presented to the Senate Finance Committee the Alternative Budget Initiative (ABI) that urges senators “to regain the power of the purse” by scrutinizing the entire proposed appropriation.
The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) has proposed a P2.606-trillion national budget for 2015, but Congress will debate in detail the P1.361 trillion in government-agency budgets.
However, the group said that, out of the P1.361-trillion government-agency budget, P761.231 billion worth of personnel expenditures are subject to automatic appropriations, “leaving P599.769 billion for detailed scrutiny.”
“At this time, only the Senate can save what remains of Congress’s disappearing ‘power of the purse.’ The House has already delivered the blow. Let not the Senate wield the fatal coup de grâce,” Briones said in her presentation at the Senate Committee on Finance during the initial deliberation of the P2.606-trillion proposed national budget.
She said that, under the General Appropriations Bill (GAB) of 2015, the DBM has misused the word “savings” to allow the use of certain funds without congressional approval. The Senate, she added, should also “review carefully the errata, lump sums and pork” by demanding accountability and regular monitoring.
The Social Watch group also cited specific Senate amendments to the GAB, which included more than P50-billion allocation for indigent communities.
Briones said there is a discrepancy in the proposed P1,734,399,000 Indigent and Poor Patients Budget “for the hospitalization and the grant of assistance to indigent and poor patients, including the payment of PhilHealth premium.” She said that, under the proposed funding, the reflected amount in the DBM’s proposed budget is only P646,850,000, leaving a discrepancy of around P1.1 billion, which would have been lodged under the key budget items of the Department of Health’s central office.
“If that is the case, this should be clarified and reflected in the Budget Line 51, page 1131, Vol. 2-A. This is also apart from the issue on the vagueness of selection of the recipients of the said assistance, which was not disclosed in its special provision,” Briones said.
Image credits: Nonoy Lacza