MANILA – Less than a week after President Benigno Aquino III submitted the proposed 1.645-trillion budget for 2011, a think thank group on Sunday hit the administration for not prioritizing social and economic welfare programs.
Research group Ibon Foundation noted that the Aquino administration has backpedalled in its promise of providing basic social services by setting aside P357.1 billion for interest payments alone.
Ibon said that even if the budget was increased by 6.8 percent from last year’s P1.541 trillion, the government’s plan to increase allocation for interest payment (P80.9 billion) defeats the purpose in addressing gaps in social services for the poor.
“This is the largest absolute increase in interest payments in the country’s history and, at a 29.2 percent increase from the year before, is the second largest percentage increase after the 32.6 percent growth in 2000,” it said.
The group noticed the drop in the budgets of the following sectors: agriculture and agrarian reform (falling by P23.1 billion or 26 percent), communication, roads and other transportation (P7.9 billion or 5.2 percent), water resources development and flood control (P4 billion or 21.4 percent), and power and energy (P3.4 billion or 65.5 percent).
Ibon also noted a 3.5 percent decrease in the budget for health, from this year’s P40 billion to P38.6 billion.
“This alarmingly creates the justification for the further privatization of critical public infrastructure, even as diminishing government engagement undermines its capacity to regulate,” Ibon said. (Virgil Lopez/Sunnex)