SOCIAL Watch Philippines (SWP) and Scrap Pork Network (SPN) have asked the Senate to scrutinize the 2017 national budget thoroughly, particularly the lump- sum appropriations, and prevent the return of the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP).
SWP and SPN also warned that pork barrel and DAP might still be embedded on the proposed P3.35-trillion budget, thus spurring fears that what has been dubbed as a “budget for change” may be a budget for graft, waste and fund abuses.
“The 2017 budget is still far from being the budget for real change that we expect from this administration, as lump sums and other contestable appropriations are still embedded in it,” SWP coconvenor Prof. Marivic Raquiza said on Monday.
The convenor of SWP, Prof. Leonor Magtolis Briones, is now the secretary of the Department of Education (DepEd).
The Senate Committee on Finance has finished plenary deliberations on House Bill 3408, or the 2017 General Appropriations bill (GAB), on November 22.
SWP found a little more than P930 billion in automatic appropriations out of the P3.350-trillion budget.
The Special Purpose Funds (SPFs) amount to P484.030 billion and the Unprogrammed Funds (UFs) total P67.5 billion.
“These leave only 57 percent, or P1.948 trillion, of agency budgets open to public discussion, because automatic appropriations, unprogrammed funds and SPFs are not usually debated in great detail,” SWP fellow Jocelyn Cuaresma explained.
SPN campaigner Peachy Tan added that lump sums are open to abuse, since they are largely opaque and not subject to accountability.
Moreover, they lack the details and the specific work plans as in the budget proposals of regular agencies.
“Once these are approved, these are vulnerable to reductions, transfers and ‘adjustments,’” she added.
“The pork-barrel issue may still be alive, despite the Supreme Court ruling on the unconstitutionality of the Priority Development Assistance Fund [Pdaf] or pork barrel,” SWP and SDPN said in a statement.
Earlier the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) announced it would allow legislators to propose programs, activities and projects (PAPs) for their respective constituents, which many anti-pork groups question.
“The DBM’s announcement, in essence, may resurrect the practice of pork-barrel politics. We further question how the legislators can examine the budget submitted by the Executive from an impartial and disinterested perspective, when their pet projects are embedded in the agency budgets,” the groups stressed.
They warned that this may constitute conflict of interest.
SWP and SPN called on citizens to be vigilant during the implementation of local projects identified by legislators for inclusion in the national budget during the preparation and legislation phases.
“We recognize the Legislative’s power of the purse, but the insistence of some legislators to identify the beneficiaries for government programs is an indication that the pork-barrel system is alive, even as postenactment intervention was rendered unconstitutional by the SC,” they noted.
The anti-pork groups support the lawmakers desire to provide benefits for their constituents but believe the most appropriate way for legislators to do this is by actively participating in the Local Development Councils (LDCs) that are mandated to formulate development plans and public investment programs, in accordance with Sections 107 and 109 of Republic Act 7160, or the Local Government Code.
“Identifying and solving the concerns of local people can best be addressed through the collective wisdom of local leaders, including civil-society organizations, who are members of the LDCs, and of which the legislators in the House of Representatives are also members of,” the budget watchdogs said. “This way, the projects of legislators can better be rationalized within a development framework formulated by local leaders and local citizens’ groups, and which there can be consultations on with local citizens.”
It is widely reported that the agencies from which the PAPs will be drawn from are the following: the departments of Health, Social Welfare and Development, and of Labor and Employment; Technical Education and Skills Development Authority; Department of Public Works and Highways; and Commission on Higher Education.
Bringing up the issue on DAP-like budget transfers, Cuaresma expressed concern over the return of the erroneous definition on savings, as stipulated in General Provisions, Section 59, paragraphs (a), (b), and (d) of the Third Reading version of the 2017 GAB.
Unobligated allotments may be taken away from the agency and be declared as savings at any time of the year (Paragraphs a and b).
In paragraph (d), “savings” may be determined even though a PAP has yet to be implemented.
“Before we know it, we may see the revival of the Disbursement Acceleration Program legitimized in the national budget,” she said.
To avert this, SWP and SPN urged the Senate to restore the definition of savings under Section 56, General Provisions of 2017 National Expenditure Program during the period of amendments to the 2017 GAB.