The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
By Jerry Maglunog
Former National Treasurer Leonor Magtolis Briones asked voters to challenge those running for Congress to reveal their positions on the P3.0002-trillion 2016 national appropriations that her group, Social Watch Philippines (SWP), has described an “election budget loaded with lump-sum appropriations and pork.”
At Samahang Plaridel’s Kapihan sa Manila Hotel, the lead convenor of the budget watchdog reiterated her charge that this year’s budget as well as next year’s were designed to “accommodate” or to fit in with the needs of the campaign kitty of former Transportation and Interior Secretary Manuel Antonio Roxas (Mar) II, the administration party’s standard-bearer, and other LP candidates.
The two national appropriations appear to have been skewed to “enhance” the profiles of the ruling party’s candidates while very little has been allotted to alleviate poverty and create more jobs, Briones said.
This is why it is important for the people to know how candidates for the Senate and the House of Representatives “stand on issues concerning the diminishing power of the purse, discretionary lump-sum funds, budget transfers and realignments, persistence of pork barrel, and the distortion of budget terms like the meaning of errata, as applied to the budget, and the redefinition of savings,” Briones said.
“We also call on the candidates to pronounce concrete platforms and policies on instituting reforms to the budget and public finance.”
“It’s a given that none of them would admit it,” Briones said of the stubborn denial of her charges by Budget Management Secretary Florencio “Butch” Abad the silence of the members of the appropriations committee of both chambers of Congress.
In an earlier explanation of her “pork” charges, Briones said that, as in previous elections years, infrastructure projects were embedded in the 2016 budget that were specifically identified by legislators during the preparation of the budget and were thus allotted huge amounts.
Additional insertions were introduced by both chambers of Congress and the members of the bicameral conference committee, Briones added. Concrete examples were farm-to market roads that were identified by the legislators who claimed credit for them during election sorties.
Briones said the budget has increased because it is loaded with pork barrel that was “given a new name.”
“These redefinitions exacerbate the three decisions of the Supreme Court on the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) and the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) and should have been rejected by both houses (of Congress). Before the definitions of savings, augmentation and realignment were overhauled significantly in the 2015 GAA, the previous budget law –the 2014 GAA — defined these terms in accordance with the 1987 Constitution as validated by the Supreme Court,” she noted.
She said that despite the bloated budget, there remains no clear program on how to beat poverty and increase jobs, especially in the provinces. “We must remember that poverty, unemployment and hunger virtually remained the same for the past nine years,” she noted.
Professor Marivic Raquiza, SWP co-convenor, who was also at the Kapihan observed: “Our poverty rate has moved down slowly according to MDG (millennium development goals) standards, and as compared to our Asean counterparts. We also failed to accomplish 19 out of the 28 MDG indicators. These are proofs of the lack of correlation between economic growth and poverty and inequality,”
Briones said election spending would bring in “a fake growth period” that would not last more than five days. “A source said a budget for vote buying is padded in this year’s (national) budget and certainly very select candidates (of the ruling party) will benefit from this,” Briones said as she lamented that while there was a budget for vote buying, there was no budget for poverty alleviation.
SWP questioned the national government’s forecast of a 7.5-percent to 8.5-percent growth this year, as there is no indicator that any industry in the country would prosper to deliver the growth goal.
“Growth will be brought about by election spending, which generates more jobs like in construction and campaign work, but this will be temporary. There will also be an effect on banking and finance with the splurge of money flowing around the economy,” she said. “The question remains whether election-driven growth will be sustained for the long term and whether it will directly benefit the poor and the marginalized. Will this be sustainable enough to lift people out of poverty?”