Recto seeks itemized post-budget reporting by executive branch

MANILA, Philippines - Responding to public demands for transparency and accountability in the allocation and use of funds in the national budget, Sen. Ralph Recto called for strict reporting of the status of projects and programs at the end of the year.

After the controversy over the pork barrel fund of lawmakers and Malacañang’s Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP), public suspicion on how funds are used has intensified and the demand for transparency and accountability has become stronger than ever.

Recto suggested the executive branch should submit a status of all expenditure items in the budget to Congress to allow the public to see if the appropriations were used as intended.

“The idea is for the executive to return to us the same General Appropriations Act, but this time it will be in annotated form. Every funding item in the GAA of the previous year will carry a corresponding note indicating when it was completed and the amount spent for its completion,” Recto said.

“If a line-item in the GAA says that P100 million is appropriated for this road, then what we want is for the government to submit next year the same GAA with a status report opposite the line-item,” he added.

Among the criticisms raised against the DAP was that several projects identified in the national budget ended up being shelved and funds for these items were then treated as savings and realigned to other items.

Sen. Nancy Binay said this defeats the purpose of the budget deliberations in Congress, where each proposed project is scrutinized before it is approved for funding under the national budget.

Recto proposed a national budget-like document would be submitted to Congress and beside each item would be a note on its status.

“The beauty of this approach is that lump-sum funds can be disaggregated. For example, the calamity fund is a block fund and under my proposal, post-budget reporting would be itemized so we’ll know where the funds were used,” he said.

At present, it is difficult even for Congress to check whether a specific project authorized in the national budget has indeed been completed, or has been realigned or has had its funds impounded.

Recto said the Commission on Audit does not even have to make the status report because the Department of Budget and Management, “whose recent radical reforms allow it to keep tabs on each and every project, can render the report.”

Recto said the status does not need to be complicated because a simple one-line note such as “fully implemented” would already suffice.

Meanwhile, Pro-Life Philippines said they are in favor of scrapping the conditional cash transfer (CCT) program in the 2015 national budget.

Pro-life president Eric Manalang said the government’s CCT program, also called the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps), barely improved the quality of lives of poor Filipinos who are supposed to benefit from it.

Manalang said the government should devote more time and resources to long-term livelihood projects and employment opportunities, instead of to the CCT because it only promotes dependency.

Manalang said the government should closely monitor the auditing of the multi-billion-peso CCT, and keep a list detailing its supposed beneficiaries.

Fr. Edwin Mercado of Pondo ng Pinoy said he is convinced the CCT program is bound to fail because it does not involve developmental enterprise and values formation of its recipients.

If there is no forming of values it would only promote a culture of dependency, he added.

The proposal to strike the P64.7-billion CCT from the 2015 national budget was first suggested by House Minority Leader Ronaldo Zamora, who claimed the CCT failed to improve the lot of 19.7 percent of Filipinos.         – With Evelyn Macairan