Marcos Jr. proposes P453.1-B climate change spending plan for 2023

MANILA, Philippines — The Marcos Jr. administration is proposing a P453.1 billion budget for climate change expenditures that, analysts think, left much too be desired.

In a statement on Wednesday, the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) said the proposal was in sync with President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr.’s agenda of funding climate change expenditures spotlighting eight key areas: food and water security, environmental sustainability, and climate smart industries and services.

Leonardo Lanzona, economist at Ateneo De Manila University, said the national government should have prioritized the climate crisis years earlier. As an emerging economy, the Philippines is a low carbon emitter considering developed countries were heavy polluters early in their industrialization. 

“I think climate change should have been prioritized much earlier. As it is, the task has become more difficult and more costly. In any case, it is good to begin now. My only concern is how the government will consider the disruptions that can emerge from this program,” he said. 

The DBM highlighted that the Marcos Jr. administration boosted the budget allocation for climate change spending by 56% year-on-year to P453.1 billion for next year. 

Broken down, most departments raked in sizable increases in their climate budget allocations in the 2023 iteration. The proposed climate change budget of the Department of Agriculture grew 31% or P7.35 billion, to P31.09 billion for next year.

The allocation for the Department of Public Works and Highways grew 33.8% to P288.55 billion, which was the largest proposed budget for any department next year.

The second highest allocation will flow to the Transportation department. Their allocation grew a whopping 454% to P108.64 billion for next year. 

Zyza Suzara, executive director at iLead, a public finance think tank, said while the increase is a welcome development, the numbers still need to be contextualized.

“We cannot objectively say whether these allocations are sufficient or insufficient without the government quantifying how much investments are needed to build resilience over a certain time horizon. Aggregate figures are meaningless if they do not talk about them vis a vis time-bound plans and investment requirements,” she said in a Telegram message. 

Suzara explained that allocations for climate change adaptation, a stance taken on by the national government considering its status as a developing economy, need to be coordinated with other existing policy frameworks, such as the Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation and Disaster Risk Reduction Roadmap. 

“The CCA-DRR is going to expire this year. The current administration can probably make updating that a priority and from there, determine how much is really needed for climate change adaptation,” she said.

For Sonny Africa, executive director of nonprofit IBON Foundation, this year’s proposed climate change expenditures was an attempt of Marcos Jr. administration to make themselves “green.” 

“Unfortunately the ‘climate change expenditures’ seem more of a public relations exercise to ‘greenify’ the administration's image for the international community rather than a real concern for the environment,” he said in a Viber message. 

Africa floated the question of whether these projects were directed towards addressing the climate crisis, citing the P265 billion for water sufficiency and P169 billion for flood control, which account for 59% and 37% of the total allocation.

“The hollowness of the administration's concern is also belied by their eagerness for more mining investments and operations,” Africa added. 

Going deeper, he spotlighted that the 2023 version of the Budget of Expenditures and Sources of Financing revealed that the budget for “environmental protection” was slashed 16.2% to P20.9 billion for next year. Likewise, Africa pointed out that the Department of Environment and Natural Resources’ budget was cut 9%, which would amount to two years of budget cuts already.

The DBM said Marcos Jr. wants to increase funding for climate change programs by an average of 15% yearly.