By David Cagahastian
A militant peasant group said on Monday that the disbursement by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) of some P24.7 billion in public funds under the Bottom-up Budgeting (BuB) scheme is meant to bolster the campaign of Liberal Party (LP) candidates in the May elections.
In a news statement, the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) said that when LP standard-bearer Manuel A. Roxas II headed the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG), he had promised to expand the allocation for BuB to P100 billion annually, and the allocations for each barangay, town or city will depend upon its population.
KMP said this dangling of public funds to benefit the ruling party’s campaign is “bribery in broad daylight.”
During the weekend, the DBM announced that it has allocated the biggest chunk of P2.25 billion of the total P24.7 billion to Eastern Visayas, the poorest region in the country with a poverty level that rose to 54.9 percent after the onslaught of Supertyphoon Yolanda (international code name Haiyan) in late 2013.
The DBM defended the release of the BuB funds to the local communities, saying that the BuB scheme directly benefits local communities by allowing them to participate in the budgeting process by proposing to the national government the projects that they need.
The DBM, in the statement, said the BuB scheme had even been recognized as one of five Best Practices in Fiscal Transparency from around the world in the Open Government Partnership Summit in Mexico City in November 2015.
But KMP pointed out that militant party-list organizations in Congress, including the Anakpawis party-list, questioned the BuB mechanism as unconstitutional, because it allows “post-budget enactment modifications.”
They likened the process to the previous Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF), which was struck down by the Supreme Court as an undue delegation of legislative power and an encroachment upon Congress’s “power of the purse.”
And just like PDAF, the disbursement of which was frequently politically motivated and corruption-riddled, the disbursement of BuB funds is a public expenditure directed by patronage politics.
“We know how government projects are funded and disbursed. BuB projects are mostly infrastructure or ‘hard projects’ packaged by the DBM and Aquino allies as poverty-alleviation projects. In reality, BuB projects are construction of local roads, bridges, multipurpose halls, health centers, covered courts, installation of water pumps, among other projects,” the KMP charged.
(With Jonathan L. Mayuga)
1 comment
TUTOL at matagal ng KUMO-KONTRA ang ANAKPAWIS at KMP sa gubyernong burgis – Pilipinas. SIMULA’T SIMULA pa, kontra sila sa Aquino Administration, GMA, ERAP at RAMOS, consistent na tinutulan ng maka-KALIWANG grupo ang lahat ng Presidente ng Pilipinas..
Ang tanong ng marami, ANO ang BAGO sa KMP at ANAKPAWIS ?
kaya lang, parang BLESSING, sapagkat, kung anong INAAYAWAN, kung ano ang KINOKONTRA ng KMP, ANAKPAWIS ay yaon naman GINUGUSTO at LOVEs ng maraming tao….simpleng BINABALIGTAD lang ng maraming nag-iisip na Pilipino ang posisyon ng mga komunista, magiging tama ka at wasto ….
Parang sinasabi ng mga tao, “na DAHIL KINONTRA na ng mga komunista ang BUB approached ng DILG, positibo tuloy ang epekto…marami na tuloy ang NANINIWALA, naCHALLENGE at mas INTERESADO na ngayon ang marami na MAG-ENGAGED sa gubyerno, sa BUB approached.”