|
Monday, July 31, 2006
Amante: Paying for the Sona’s promises
By Isolde D. Amante
Peryodistang Pinay
AFTER hearing the State of the Nation Address (Sona) last week, the question I wanted to ask was: Where are we getting the money to pay for all that?
Within days, Budget Secretary Rolando Andaya Jr. revealed that the projects identified will cost P207.4 billion, nearly half of that (46.5 percent) from government corporations. The other fund sources will be official development assistance and the National Government (35.7 percent), the private sector (17.7 percent) and local governments (.01 percent).
So far, President Arroyo and her advisers seem to be on the same page. Andaya’s announcement of how the infrastructure costs will be split echoes a statement in the Medium-Term Public Investment Plan: “The cost of these infrastructure projects is enormous and beyond the capacity of any one level of government.”
But, the same way a speech is better understood in the context of the speaker’s non-verbal cues, any government report isn’t fully appreciated unless one reads the fine print.
Reading the public investment plan tells us that the tourism infrastructure bill for the proposed Central Philippines alone will cost some P19 billion for the roads and P14 billion for the airports. Conveniently enough, part of the funds will be available in time for the elections of 2007.
The plan also identifies at least five other funding strategies. These are:
(1) Tapping the local government units;
(2) Reviewing the Build-Operate-Transfer Law and getting the private sector to foot the bill for more projects;
(3) Creating a Philippine Infrastructure Corp. to build airports, seaports, railways, dams, irrigation systems, using seed money from government bonds sales;
(4) Encouraging a “users pay” culture among road users and amending the Road Fund Law to include a fuel levy; and
(5) Creating a special levy or imposing higher property taxes “to capture part of the windfall gains in land and property values” once these infrastructure projects are built.
Here’s where the official script gets dicey. Last week, Malacañang’s advisers kept saying there’ll be no new taxes, yet the public investment plan identifies a new fuel levy and user fees as fund sources. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t object to user fees. Like all taxpayers, however, I would appreciate being told about them in the most transparent terms possible.
How transparent? Consider this carrot-and-stick statement from the Sona: “Bohol now merits its own international airport, just as our country deserves a world-class Constitution strongly supported by Gov. (Erico) Aumentado and the league of local authorities.”
Now that’s transparency for you—just not the kind that restores one’s faith in how government resources are apportioned.
(managingnews@sunstar.com.ph)
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (July 31, 2006 issue)
Write letter to the editor.Click here.
Join the Sun.Star message board.Click here.
|
|
[return to top]
[home]
[network page]
|
LOCAL NEWS
BUSINESS
OPINION
SPORTS
LIFESTYLE
FEATURE
SUPERBALITA
WEEKEND
|
