The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) has thanked the House of Representatives for its assurance to pass before the year-end the P3.35-trillion national budget for 2017
Budget Secretary Benjamin E. Diokno said the 2017 national budget is expected to be passed into law by December this year.
“We are very happy that the proposed 2017 budget is on time, despite taking over only last July and overhauling the proposed budget prepared by the previous administration,” Diokno said in a news statement released on Monday.
Rep. Karlo Alexei Nograles of the First District of Davao City, chairman of the House of Representatives’s Committee on Appropriations, said in his sponsorship speech the first annual budget endorsed by the Duterte administration will “bring to life [to] President Duterte’s promise of peace, prosperity and social justice.”
The Duterte administration’s fiscal policy involves lessening the funds intended for debt service and increasing the budget deficit to allow more expenditures in items like social services and infrastructure, which stimulate the economy by increasing economic activities.
Under the Executive’s budget proposal, 40 percent will be invested in human resources through education, health care, social welfare and other social services.
Economic services will have a 27.6-percent share in the total budget to fix and build new infrastructure networks, boost the agriculture and rural sector, and generate more jobs and livelihood.
The proposed total expenditures for infrastructure projects in 2017 amounts to P860.765 billion, or a 13.78-percent increase from this year’s allocation.
Almost 22 percent of the budget will fund general public services and defense spending.
The budget for debt service will be reduced further from 14 percent of this year’s annual budget to only 10.6 percent of the proposed annual budget for 2017.
The proposed annual budget for 2017 is 11.6 percent higher than this year’s approved budget. It represents 21 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP), or almost a five-percentage point increase in spending than the average government spending of 16.6 percent of GDP during the years 2006 to 2015.