Drilon vows to defend P39-billion budget for DSWD

MANILA, Philippines - Sen. Franklin Drilon yesterday vowed to defend the retention of the entire P39.4-billion allocation for the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) under the 2012 national budget.

Drilon, as chairman of the Senate committee on finance, made the response to threats from various members of Congress to realign the DSWD budget concerning its Cash Conditional Transfer (CCT) program.

Drilon said that at least two of his colleagues, Senators Edgardo Angara and Panfilo Lacson, have expressed their support for the CCT and the DSWD as the implementing agency after hearing the successes brought about by the program over the years.

He cited the appraisal of the CCT program conducted by the University of the Philippines College of Public Administration and Governance (UP-CPAG), which showed improvements in the attitude and mindset of the beneficiaries.

“The conclusion of UP-CPAG is that the CCT is a bridge program towards poverty alleviation and not a program to eradicate poverty totally,” Drilon said.

“It is principally human resource development through health and educational assistance. We have to emphasize this because the impression is that this is a poverty alleviation program. It is not. It is principally human resource development by addressing our health and education concerns,” he added.

The CCT program was launched in 2008 and was meant to improve attendance of children in school, ensure that infants are vaccinated and mothers regularly undergo medical check ups at the local health facilities.

Specifically targeted to the poorest of the poor, the CCT program was patterned after similar programs in Latin American countries where it has succeeded and helped improve the plight of the poor.

A total of P4 billion has been spent for the CCT program since 2008 and with the bigger allocations given to the program this year (P21.194 billion) and in 2012 (P39.4 billion), the total disbursement would reach an estimated P79.4 billion by the end of 2012.

DSWD Secretary Corazon Soliman said there are now a total of 2.3 million beneficiaries in the program and by end-2012, this would go up to three million households.

The program would continue even beyond President Aquino’s term in 2016, she said.

Soliman said the program is envisioned to last until 2020 and by that time, the estimated total cost since the start of the program in 2008 would reach P346.6 billion.

Several members of Congress indicated they would push for some realignments of the CCT program funds because of the huge amount allocated by Malacañang for this purpose.

“Here (in the Senate) we are supporting the budget of the CCT. We can defend it. We can defend this budget,” Drilon said.

Drilon, however, said he still has to see the concrete results of the CCT program, particularly in school attendance and the data coming from the Department of Health, just to be certain that the program is working as intended.

“These are the concrete data that we would like to see from the DSWD as a basis for our continuously appropriating funds for this very substantial project,” Drilon said.

“So far after two years of this administration, we can see in our assessment that at least there are initial successes. But the jury is still out, so to speak, and we will see, maybe at the end of next year, how far we have gone insofar as achieving the purposes of this program is concerned,” he added.

‘Everything is there’

Malacañang, on the other hand, maintained it is not hiding anything about the budget of state universities and colleges (SUCs) as it expressed readiness to talk to sectors that have concerns about the allocation.

“We are not hiding anything in terms of the budget,” deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte said in a press briefing.

Valte noted the items to be funded by the SUC outlay are enumerated in the budget proposal submitted to lawmakers.

“All the items in the budget submitted to Congress are in the 2012 national expenditure program, which is as thick as a directory. Everything is there,” she said.

Valte said they are ready to discuss the SUC outlay with groups that have issues about how these have been allocated.

Sen. Francis Escudero on Tuesday asked the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) to itemize the lump sum entry in the 2012 budget for SUCs.

Escudero said this would promote transparency and address doubts on the funding.

“Transparency demands nothing less and lump sum allocation is the exact opposite of transparency. If DBM is able to explain how the University of the Philippines budget is itemized, it should also be able to show aggregates of other SUC budgets to prevent the protest and to actually show what and how much exactly goes to where,” he said.

Escudero said the outlay for miscellaneous and personnel benefit funds (MPBF) should not be lumped together in order to see what each school is getting.

“Why let our students fight for each and every peso in the education allocation when government should freely give it?” he asked.– With Alexis Romero