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Thursday, August 25, 2005
Arroyo backs off from ‘pork’
MANILA-President Arroyo yesterday asked Congress to pass a P1.05 trillion national budget for 2006, up 14.7 percent from this year’s budget.
Malacañang wants the House of Representatives, which is hearing the impeachment complaints against the President, to act on the proposed budget with “utmost urgency.”
Almost one-third or P340 billion of the budget has been allotted for debt interest payments, according to the proposal that Budget Secretary Romulo Neri submitted to lawmakers.
As in recent years, the Department of Education (DepEd) got the biggest share among the government agencies, with P119.1 billion.
Full pork
Members of the Senate and the House of Representatives, meanwhile, will continue to get their Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) or pork barrel, amounting to P6.2 billion.
Under the proposal, each House lawmaker will get P40 million and each senator, P120 million.
Arroyo said in a statement that the budget proposal was “a strategic weapon against the looming oil crisis and as a strategy to fight poverty.”
She described the budget as both “a heat shield” to protect the poor from “the vagaries of the world economy,” as well as a building block for greater economic growth.
However, despite announcements by the President to amend the 1987 Constitution, Neri admitted that there was no appropriation for that initiative.
Pay hike
About P330.5 billion has been allotted to personnel services or the payroll of National Government employees, an increase of P42 billion from the 2005 outlay, according to the proposed budget.
This is due mainly to the eight to nine percent salary increase government workers will be getting next year, Neri said in a news briefing in Malacañang.
Despite its failed computerization program and questions on its credibility during the May 2004 election, the Commission on Elections will get a 135-percent increase in its budget or from this year’s P1.4 billion, to P3.3 billion in 2006.
Of the P3.3 billion, about P1.6 billion will be used for the automation of elections, particularly the modernization of data submission and counting systems, Neri said.
Following the DepEd, is the Department of Public Works and Highways, with P62.3 billion.
The Department of National Defense has been allotted P51.6 billion; the Department of Interior and Local Governments, P45.6 billion; and the Department of Agriculture, P15.6 billion, according to the proposed budget.
The Senate and the House will get P4.5 billion.
Local support
Funding for the Internal Revenue Allocations of local government units has been pegged at P181 billion, according to the proposal.
The budget deficit for 2006 is projected at P124.9 billion, compared with the 2005 deficit target of P180 billion, the budget department said in a statement.
This reduced deficit target is based on a projected 23.7 percent growth in revenues to P968.6 billion.
The government sees the economy growing at a 6.1 percent next year, inflation at 7.5 percent and merchandise exports growing 11 percent.
It expects to finance the deficit partly through P150 billion in net borrowings. Of that, 68.3 percent will come from foreign sources and the rest from domestic sources. (AFP)
(August 25, 2005 issue)
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