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Wednesday, December 07, 2005
Mindanao execs seek more budget allocation
THE six Regional Development Councils (RDC) of Mindanao are planning to troop to Congress and various national government departments and agencies to lobby for a "fair share" in the proposed national budget for 2006.
South Cobatao Governor Daisy Avance-Fuentes, chair of RDC Soccsksargen, said officials and members of the joint Mindanao RDCs agreed during a meeting in Misamis Oriental last week to launch a road show to counter the continuing neglect of the island in terms of budgetary allocation.
The six Mindanao RDCs are composed of Southern Mindanao, Soccsksargen, Caraga, Northern Mindanao, Western Mindanao and the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.
"Our piece of the budget pie is so small that we hardly noticed it in the matrix. This has been the case for the last three years so we decided that it's time to take the necessary actions," she told reporters.
Fuentes though failed to say how much the island is getting in the proposed P1.3 trillion national budget for next year.
But she said the island is lagging anew behind Luzon and some parts of the Visayas in terms of allocation for development projects and socio-economic programs.
This year, Mindanao's allocation in the national budget reached only 11 percent, a significant decline from the 22 to 23 percent it received in 2000.
Bukidnon Representative Juan Miguel Zubiri, a member of the House of Representatives' committee on Mindanao Affairs, earlier said the island has continued to receive a dismal share of the national government's budget and Internal Revenue Allotment.
He pointed that the island contributes at least P200 billion to the country's gross domestic product but only gets P30 billion as IRA share. (Allen V. Estabillo)
(December 5, 2005 issue)
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