Briones shuns gambling money for education

MANILA, Philippines – Education Secretary Leonor Briones has decided to reject billions in gambling money as subsidy for public education.

Former Pampanga congresswoman Andrea Domingo, chairperson of state-owned Philippine Gaming and Amusement Corp. (Pagcor), has revealed the decision of Briones in a hearing of the House of Representatives appropriations committee.

“She has written us to inform that she does not want gambling money for education,” Domingo said.

She said Briones is returning the balances last year and this year of Pagcor’s subsidies for the construction of school buildings.

Briones has also ordered the Department of Public Works and Highways to return whatever remainder it has of Pagcor money that has been released for the classrooms, she said.

DepEd receives about P2 billion a year for school buildings, she added.

She informed the committee that Pagcor turned over to DepEd more than P12 billion between 2010 and 2015.

Domingo said with Briones’ rejection of Pagcor subsidies, the gaming agency would now remit an additional P2 billion to the Office of the President (OP) on top of its annual share from Pagcor earnings.

“The President has announced that he would use all of OP’s Pagcor share for health facilities. They will have P2 billion more to spend,” she said.

Congressmen said education’s loss of P2 billion a year would be the gain of health services, whose funding for next year President Duterte has reduced substantially.

Budget documents the President has submitted to Congress show that he slashed the Department of Health (DOH) outlay from P125 billion this year to P94 billion in 2017, or by P31 billion.

Money for maintenance and other operating expenses (MOOE) of the department will go down from P75.1 billion to P38.9 billion, while funding for capital expenditures like clinics and hospitals will be reduced from P27.6 billion to P25.2 billion.

What will go up is the allocation for salaries, from P22.3 billion to P29.9 billion, principally because the DOH plans to recruit new doctors, nurses and midwives for deployment in rural areas.

During the Aquino administration, funds for capital expenditures of the DOH increased steadily due to the upgrading of medical facilities in the provinces and the construction of barangay health clinics.

The President also cut funding for “family planning supplies” to P165 million from P527 million this year, or by P362 million, according to opposition Rep. Edcel Lagman of Albay.

This is contrary to Duterte’s repeated pronouncement that his administration would pursue a “robust” implementation of the Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health (RH) Law, he said.

Lagman was one of the authors in the House of the RH bill that became law.

Health Secretary Paulyn Jean Ubial has initially denied a report in The STAR that Duterte has substantially reduced her department’s budget.

But she later admitted before the House appropriations committee that her agency’s funding for next year would be “26 percent lower” than this year’s level owing to the transfer of money for the national health insurance program from the DOH to the Philippine Health Insurance Corp.

The Makabayan bloc of seven leftist party-list representatives has warned Ubial that the P36.2-billion cut in her department’s MOOE allocation or operating funds would impact negatively on public hospitals.

The group said 12 specialty hospitals and 54 regional hospitals “will all suffer hefty cuts in their operating budget.”

“The overall allotment for MOOE of these public hospitals was cut by P1.5 billion, from P5.2 billion in 2016 to P3.7 billion for 2017,” it said.