House offers compromise to break budget stalemate

The chairman of the House appropriations committee is offering a compromise to break the deadlock between congressmen and senators on the proposed P1.126-trillion 2007 national budget.

Albay Rep. Joey Salceda told dzMM’s Ted Failon and Korina Sanchez that he is agreeable to using half of P6.4 billion in school feeding funds for the construction of school buildings and hiring of additional teachers.

"We are willing to talk about it and accept realigning half of the funds," he said.

Interviewed in the same program, Sen. Franklin Drilon, who heads the Senate finance committee, said if he would have his way, he would like the bulk of the money allotted for building new classrooms and recruiting thousands of teachers.

He said the country would have to construct at least 8,000 new classrooms and hire at least 10,000 teachers to ease congestion in public schools.

Such congestion is not conducive to learning, he said.

He said besides overcrowding in classrooms, teachers have to teach children who attend school in two or three shifts a day.

This means that due to an acute classroom and teacher shortage, the same overworked teachers have to handle three batches of children in the same classroom every day, he stressed.

Under the feeding program, children in public elementary schools and daycare centers are to be given a kilo of rice for every day of attendance. The rice will be supplied by the National Food Authority (NFA).

Of the 6.4 billion in feeding funds, P4.7 billion would be given to the Department of Education for elementary schools, while the balance of P1.7 billion would be allotted to the Department of Social Welfare and Development for daycare centers.

Drilon said rice procurement by the NFA would be open to corruption.

He said there have been reports of rice traders offering huge commissions for rice supplied to the government.

The distribution of rice under the program could also be timed with the election period in May next year, when the nation elects its new set of lawmakers and local officials, he added.

Bicameral talks on the budget have been deadlocked on the issue of how to use the feeding funds and P400 million of the P650-million intelligence budget of President Arroyo.

Senators want to realign the P400 million to the Department of National Defense.

Early last week, the Senate-House conference committee on the budget was ready to endorse the outlay when Mrs. Arroyo told Salceda that she would not agree to the realignments.

She has threatened to veto any change in the use of the P6.4 billion in school feeding funds.

Meanwhile, Malacañang reiterated its appeal for Congress to approve the budget in full as the country’s economic managers pushed for the approval of the proposed 2007 budget as soon as possible. — With Aurea Calica