House OKs P500-M Lebanon evac fund

The House appropriations committee approved yesterday President Arroyo’s request for P500 million to be used for the mass evacuation of Filipino workers in Lebanon.

Albay Rep. Joey Salceda, committee chairman, said the amount would be added to the P46.4-billion supplemental budget that his panel also approved.

Thus, additional appropriations that would augment the reenacted P907-billion 2005 budget would total P46.9 billion, he said.

Budget Secretary Rolando Andaya Jr. praised his former colleagues in Congress for their speedy action on the requested appropriations.

"We are extremely pleased. With the approval of the supplemental budget, more help is on the way to Filipinos in Lebanon," Andaya, who was Camarines Sur congressman before he was named to the Cabinet, said. "It was faster than you can order pizza. I am confident that what the House did today will also be done by the Senate."

The P500 million will augment this year’s so-called calamity fund, but it will be the first time it will be used for disaster areas outside the country’s shores, he said.

Andaya attended yesterday’s meeting of the appropriations committee, of which he was chairman for more than eight years until he joined the President’s Cabinet a few months ago.

Salceda’s Albay colleague Edcel Lagman, chairman of the committee on overseas workers’ affairs, said the P500-million fund "is of critical urgency in the wake of President Arroyo’s order for a mandatory evacuation and repatriation of OFWs in Lebanon."

He said the fund would augment P150 million released by Malacañang to the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) and $4 million set aside by the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration for repatriation work.

The request for the evacuation fund and its approval by the House came days after Ambassador to Beirut Al Francis Bichara complained that no funds were being remitted to the embassy by Manila for the repatriation of workers.

Palace and DFA officials later grudgingly admitted that Bichara was "technically correct," but they admonished him for airing his complaint in public.

Before approving the supplemental budget, the Salceda committee realigned P1 billion of the P4.6 billion intended for the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) to the Department of Education (DepEd) for the "repair of school buildings."

"We accept the realignment, we can live with it. The amount is being transferred from one good cause to another. It will have the same beneficiaries — our people," said Andaya.

Asked whether the realigned amount will be part of the congressmen’s pork barrel, Salceda responded, "To the extent that they can access it, yes."

DepEd will thus have a total of P9.6 billion in additional funds, while DAR’s allocation will be reduced to P3.6 billion.

The other items in the supplemental budget include P16.7 billion for local government units, P1.4 billion for the Department of the Interior and Local Government, P1.6 billion for the Commission on Elections, P9.8 billion for personnel benefits, pension and gratuity, and P3.2 billion for "equity rental" fees for the Metro Rail Transit 3 system along EDSA.

MRT-3 investors are reportedly guaranteed a monthly rental of P100 million paid out of taxpayers’ money through the Department of Transportation and Communications.

With the approval of the supplemental budget, chances for the passage of the President’s proposed P1.053-trillion 2006 budget have become dimmer.

During the deliberations for the supplemental budget, Andaya said the government has no choice but to line up "short gestation, instant gratification" projects in the money measure the executive branch is asking Congress to approve.

He pointed out that there are only 150 days left in the year so "sunk-in-the-ground" projects are not the best option at this time due to the "closing window of opportunity."

Andaya said infrastructure projects such as roads, bridges and irrigation would take time to complete. He said a 10-kilometer road project, for example, the conception-to-completion period would take seven months at the very least.

"The procurement process is already long, even if we are beginning to shorten the process, the bidding process alone would eat up months," he said.

Another reason, Andaya said, is that government had already frontloaded infrastructure spending in the first quarter of the year to take advantage of the good weather and to pump-prime the economy.

He said the infrastructure needs were answered early in the year so now is the time to invest in people," he said, adding there is a "bias" in the supplemental budget "for people, instead of project spending."

"We are hiring teachers, paying our arrears to veterans, recruiting jail guards, sending a quarter-of-a-million kids to day care, giving health insurance to 1.5 million families, releasing the revenue share, or IRA (internal revenue allotment or local governments’ share of taxes collected), or local governments, buying books for our children, releasing land to the tillers, and helping OFWs abroad," he said.

He said the frontloaded items early this year concentrated mostly on education, agriculture and infrastructure. Data released by Department Budget Management on July 27 showed that cost of economic "pump-priming" activities reached P71.23 billion.

Of this amount, P12.9 billion was programmed for agriculture, including P8.5 billion for irrigation. The bulk, however, went to public works with P14.9 billion worth of projects.

This is the reason, he said, why the supplemental budget "preferred projects which are immediately enjoyable." — With Paolo Romero