Proposed amendments to 2015 GAA to hike SUCs budget

MANILA, Philippines - Kabataan party-list Rep. Terry Ridon has filed a set of amendments to proposed P2.606 trillion General Appropriations Act (GAA) to raise the budget of the country’s 113 state universities and colleges by P37.7 billion, from the current P41 billion to P78.7 billion.

In a letter to Davao City Rep. Isidro Ungab, chairman of the House committee on appropriations, dated Sept. 30, Ridon asked the panel to “augment the meager funding for public tertiary education.”

The proposed GAA was approve on second reading last Friday and is now under the period of amendments. The national budget is expected to be approved in third and final reading before the end of the month.

Under the 1987 Constitution, Congress can rechannel funds from one item to another during the budget deliberation in the House, but it “may not increase the appropriations recommended by the President for the operation of the Government as specified in the budget.”

A “small committee” composed of leaders of the appropriations committee and several select members Congress will then deliberate which amendments will be included in the proposed GAA.

Ridon proposed that funds from several questionable lump-sum appropriations be rechanneled to public tertiary education.

“This representation is proposing to rechannel P27,606,000 from the Budgetary Support to Government Corporations - Others since this item is vague and only repeats the function of the line item named ‘Budgetary Support to Government Corporations,’ which already has an itemization. It is thus clear that this line item is part of the presidential pork barrel, and the appropriations herein should be rechanneled instead to education,” Ridon explained in his letter.

He also proposed to rechannel portions of the Unprogrammed Funds, specifically from the line item “Support for Infrastructure Projects and Social Programs” and the “Risk Management Program,” explaining that both allocations are “also lump-sums that if not rechanneled, will form part of the funds on which the president has direct discretion.”

He also proposed to cut the funding for the Payapa at Masaganang Pamayanan Program (PAMANA), and transfer the funds to the budget of SUCs, explaining that “it is more beneficial for the Filipino nation to invest in tertiary education rather than spend billions for violent counterinsurgency programs that only result to human rights violations.”

If passed, the amendments to the budget of the 113 SUCs will increase their allocation “to a more substantial level,” he said.