Government proposes P5.768 trillion national budget for 2024

MANILA, Philippines — The government is proposing another record budget of P5.768 trillion next year, as the administration moves to finance its priority programs and achieve macroeconomic targets.

The administration’s economic team bared the proposed National Expenditure Program (NEP) of P5.768 trillion during the 185th Cabinet-level Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC) briefing yesterday.

The record budget level proposed for next year is 9.5 percent above this year’s allocation of P5.268 trillion.

Budget chief and DBCC chair Amenah Pangandaman said the proposed national budget would continue to prioritize expenditure items that promote social and economic transformation through infrastructure development, food security, digital transformation and human capital development.

“Acknowledging the competing demands of government programs against a backdrop of limited resources, we will ensure that the 2024 NEP will only include implementation-ready agency proposals,” Pangandaman said.

She noted that the economic team is set to present the NEP to the Cabinet on June 22.

The constitutional deadline for the submission of budget is 30 days after the President’s State of the Nation Address.

“We will finalize it and maybe after SONA, give it three to five days, we will present it to Congress,” Pangandaman said.

The DBM earlier said next year’s budget factors in the expected continuing headwinds brought about by geopolitical tensions that resulted in rising inflation and interest rates.

The budget also targets to address the economic scarring left by the more than two-year pandemic.

Out of this year’s budget, P4.68 trillion or close to 90 percent has already been released as of end-May as agencies ramp up their various programs, DBM data show.

The DBM has released a total of P3.28 trillion under the 2023 General Appropriations Act (GAA). This is 89.6 percent of the total P3.66 trillion financing.

Under the 2023 GAA, the DBM said it has distributed 95.9 percent or P3.02 trillion of the P3.14 trillion for departments.

In terms of special purpose funds, releases jumped to 50.9 percent or P262.77 billion out of the P516.42 billion.

On the other hand, releases for automatic appropriations also went up and reached 73.9 percent or P1.19 trillion of the P1.61 trillion aggregate funding.

The DBM also recorded P216.21 billion in other releases as of end-May, bulk of which or P184.05 billion went to unprogrammed appropriations.

Meanwhile, President Marcos said he is ready to report on the achievements of his administration in his second SONA on July 24.

“Well, let me preserve some – keep it until the time comes. The truth of the matter is, we’re still preparing everything, all the materials that we’re going to put together,” Marcos said in a media interview after attending the Award for Promoting Philippines-China Understanding or APPCU in Manila the other night.

Like any SONA, it will focus on the country’s present situation, what the administration managed to do in the past year, as well as its plans in the years to come, the Chief Executive said. “That is essentially the template that we’re going to use,” Marcos said.

“So, the things that I mentioned in the first SONA, we will have a look and see what happened to our pronouncements in our first SONA. And I think we have something to present and that’s what the content of the SONA, I think, will probably be,” he said partly in Filipino.

Highlights of Marcos’ first SONA included the creation of the Philippine Development Plan for 2023 to 2028 to boost the country’s economy and efforts to address the rising prices and lack of supply of food.

The President, who concurrently serves as agriculture secretary, also vowed to establish a national network of farm-to-market roads, as well as set a moratorium on land amortization and offer agrarian reform beneficiary loans, among others. — Helen Flores