Social services to get a 3rd of proposed 2012 budget

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

SOCIAL services will make up close to a third of allocations in the proposed P1.816-trillion national budget for 2012.

Senator Franklin Drilon, finance committee chairman and sponsor of the bill, said the budget is "decidedly biased for the poor," with P575.8 billion going to the conditional cash transfers (CCT), Payapa at Masaganang Pamayanan (Pamana) program, and to medical insurance for indigents.

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The CCT program of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) has a proposed budget of P39 billion to increase the number of beneficiaries of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipinong Pamilya Program (4Ps) to three million households from 2.3 million.

He said the finance committee has also realigned P800 million of the 4Ps from administrative costs to cash grants for 61,538 more beneficiaries.

The Pamana project, which is overseen by the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (Opapp), meanwhile, will receive P1.9 billion pesos for development projects in 1,921 conflict-affected barangays.

The projects, which will be implemented by the DSWD, Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG), and the Department of Agrarian Reform, will be monitored by Opapp.

Since Opapp will just be a coordinating agency for the project, the Senate committee has slashed a P138.3-million allocation for administrative costs, he said.

The committee will also push for the release of P12 billion for Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) premiums for 5.2 million poor households.

"Further, all government health-care providers shall be automatically considered as PhilHealth-accredited effective April 1, 2012," Drilon said, explaining not all provinces have accredited hospitals and health centers.

He said this deprives PhilHealth members of health care.

Since the National Government will cover the premiums of "the poorest of the poor," Drilon said local governments should provide insurance for the next poorest quintile identified by the National Household Targeting System.

The DILG will meanwhile get P1.5 billion for water projects and the Local Water Utilities Administration stands to get 750 million for water projects as well.

The committee will also adopt a House of Representatives proposal to put P161 million into the chalk allowance of public school teachers, or an additional P300 per teacher.

While the budget gives more to the poor, Senator Ralph Recto, co-sponsor of the budget bill, said the government must look at how it can raise funds.

He said the Internal Revenue and Customs bureaus will need to earn around P4.98 billion a day to pay for the P1.816-trillion budget.

"And that, Mr. President, is a hard job to do in a political culture that sees spending taxes as a virtue, but collecting them as a sin, which treats their evasion as a duty, but their imposition a crime," he said.

He said fiscal incentives have been eroding revenues.

"One example of this is the grant of P44.8 billion in incentives to the Board of Investments and the Philippine Economic Zone Authority of which an estimated P26 billion are redundant," he said.

He added tax breaks have cost the government around P112 billion from 2009 to 2010, adding, however, that "this must be taken with a grain of salt because the DOF is one agency which will whine about tax losses from chemotherapy drugs if a cure to cancer will be found."

Recto also said the Bureau of Internal Revenue could consider taxing major industries instead of relying on Value-Added Tax (VAT) for revenues.

"For example, the petroleum industry pays a tax -- VAT, percentage , excise etc included -- of 11.8 percent out of its gross sales, which is below the 12 percent VAT, which is the biggest fuel additive today," he said.

The power sector, meanwhile, is taxed just 7.34 percent, he said, while consumers pay 12 percent in VAT. The automobile industry pays a gross tax of 8.83 percent and telecoms are only taxed 12.46 percent, "which is a whisker above the VAT benchmark."

"Instead of trying to liposuction more taxes out of plastic surgeons, the BIR may wish to focus on these industries considering that when it comes to the oil sector it has to deal with 21 returns only, 20 in telecoms, and 58 in power," he said.

Drilon said, meanwhile, that the proposed Senate version of the national budget adopts a House of Representatives proposal to exempt constitutional offices from a requirement to show that unfilled positions have been filled before money is released to them.

He said P5.02 billion will be taken from the proposed Miscellaneous Personnel Benefits Fund (MPBF) and given back to the judiciary, Congress, Commission on Elections, Commission on Audit, Civil Service Commission, and the Office of the Ombudsman.

The MPBF in the budget proposed by Malacanang is meant to curb the conversion of savings from unfilled positions into bonuses and pabaon or cash gifts.

The Supreme Court, along with other offices created by the Constitution, told the Senate during budget hearings that the MPBF violated their fiscal autonomy.

Under the principle of fiscal autonomy, the Constitution guarantees that allocations to those offices are "automatically and regularly released."

The MPBF was also criticized by Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, calling it a form of executive control over the bodies.

The House of Representatives gave the Constitutional offices back their allocations for unfilled positions but required that appropriations would be used only for "personal services requirements in filling unfilled positions."

The House version of the budget bill required the offices to return savings from unfilled positions to the national treasury.

Drilon said the finance committee will introduce an amendment to that, however. The judiciary will be allowed to keep its savings to build the Manila hall of justice and to repair halls of justice around the country. (Sunnex)