‘Lump sums in proposed budget not pork barrel funds’

MANILA, Philippines - The lump sum provisions in the proposed P2.606-trillion national budget for 2015 are not pork barrel funds or similar to funds under the Disbursement Acceleration Program that were declared “unconstitutional” by the Supreme Court, a lawmaker said yesterday.

Western Samar Rep. Mel Senen Sarmiento, secretary-general of the Liberal Party, said the lump sum allocations are either automatic appropriations or simple emergency funds that would enable the government to ensure uninterrupted delivery of public service even during calamities.

“Even ordinary families need to set aside a contingency fund for them to have money to buy medicine when a family member gets sick or one needs to buy school supplies that are needed for a school project. In my vocabulary, that’s good governance,” he said.

He said the P20.9-billion lump sum listed under the Grassroots Participatory Budgeting Process (GPBP) is not pork barrel because it was formulated through direct consultations with community-based organizations and local civil service organizations.

“This is a not a pork barrel of the President or of Interior and Local Government Secretary Mar Roxas. This is actually the pork barrel of the masses. The fruits of our economic growth must trickle down to our people and the GPBP is doing just that.  We are empowering our citizens to take part in the budgeting process,” Sarmiento said.

Over P500 billion in various provisions in the proposed 2015 budget were identified as lump sums.

Anti-corruption and transparency groups have warned the lump sums, which are not itemized, are prone to abuse, adding that 2015 precedes an election year.

‘Repeal Marcos decree’

A party-list representative has filed a bill that seeks to repeal a Marcos decree that automatically appropriates debt service funds every year.

House Bill 4908, filed by Rep. Terry Ridon of Kabataan, would instead automatically allot at least six percent of gross domestic product to the education sector.

“Section 5, Article XIV of our Constitution directs us to give the highest appropriation in the government budget to education spending, but we have always failed to do so because we are bound to pay our debts without question nor scrutiny,” Ridon said.

He said debt service gets the lion’s share of the national budget.

For 2014, the total budgetary allocation for the entire education sector amounts to P329.77 billion, which is only 2.45 percent of the projected P13.47 trillion gross domestic product (GDP) for the current year, he said.

In contrast, funds for debt service amount to a staggering P818.5 billion, which is 6.07 percent of the 2014 GDP, he added.

He noted that for 2015, the total debt service expenditure amounts to P789.75 billion, or 5.5 percent of the projected P14.3 trillion GDP, while education would get P369 billion equivalent to 2.6 percent of the projected GDP.

“Clearly, the government continues to prioritize debt servicing over education. That is why we need to repeal Presidential Decree 1177, which automatically appropriates funds for debt servicing,” Ridon stressed.

He pointed out that subjecting loan payment funds to congressional scrutiny would promote transparency and accountability in public finance, including the procurement of loans.

Ridon said Congress should also scrutinize the process and reasons for obtaining loans and the terms of such debt, including interest, particularly those obtained from private banks.

There could be arrangements that are disadvantageous to taxpayers, who will ultimately bear the burden of paying for these loans, he said.

Ridon said the Marcos regime legislated the automatic appropriation of debt funds because it had difficulty procuring loans from foreign sources.

However, Ridon lamented that successive administrations after the martial law regime failed to remove the sacrosanct character of loan payments. – With Jess Diaz