THE
BUSINESS OF GOVERNANCE
The Bicameral Committee for the 2008 budget
has not yet met but sparks are already flying. Former Senate Committee
Finance Chair Franklin Drilon is quoted in the papers as accusing
the House of increasing its pork barrel by P13.5 billion.
Everyone
knows the story of the three kings from the East who brought gifts
of gold, frankincense and myrrh for the Christ child. During my
childhood, the visit of the three kings was an important part
of annual nativity plays. Three boys would be dressed up in their
fathers’ bed robes, wear paper mache crowns and carry tinsel-wrapped
gifts. They would walk up to the nativity song while singing "We
Three Kings of Orient Are".
The Bicameral Committee
for the 2008 budget has not yet met but sparks are already flying.
Former Senate Committee Finance Chair Franklin Drilon is quoted
in the papers as accusing the House of increasing its pork barrel
by P13.5 billion.
Drilon called on both
the Executive and the Legislative to give up their respective
pork barrel allocations so that the proposed suspension of VAT
on oil products can be implemented without incurring a deficit.
The House vigorously
denied the accusation and insisted that there was no increase
in the pork barrel of congressmen—only realignments.
The DBM secretary has
joined the debate and stated that the president will surely veto
any increase in the budget by the House. He promptly earned a
headline in a leading broadsheet for his remarks.
Did the House increase the Ph1.2 trillion budget of the Executive?
It is not likely that
the House deliberately increased the budget. The grizzled veterans
of the House are far too clever to do what is clearly prohibited
by law. Since the total amount of the budget could not be increased,
what the House did was to realign allocations of the executive
to finance their preferred expenditures.
Can
the budget absorb a suspension of the VAT on oil?
Two
major observations can be made about the 2008 budget proposal
of the executive. First, the allocations for MDG related expenditures
are inadequate. The financial requirements for making primary
education available for all, reducing poverty, improving health,
and making clean water and sanitation available are enormous.
For 2008 alone, Manasan estimates that P94.9 billion in additional
resources are required. The proposed budget increases are nowhere
near this amount.
Secondly, like earlier
budgets, the 2008 budget is lined with a lot of fat for legislators,
but more so for the executive. This is obvious in over P700 billion
in Special Purpose Funds for the Executive, P70 million for each
Congressman, and P200 million for each Senator. The expected revenue
loss for suspension of VAT on oil is P54 billion for one year.
One single item in the Unprogrammed Funds of the President is
all of P30.5 billion for social projects and infrastructure programs.
Another item lined
with fat is the allocation for debt service. It is calculated
at Ph49 per dollar of debt even as the actual exchange rate is
steadily going down. Clearly, the debt service is overstated and
gives so much "flexibility” to the Executive.
During the budget debates
in the Senate, Sen. Panfilo Lacson took the cudgels for Social
Watch Philippines and Freedom from Debt Coalition by proposing
that the overstatement in the debt service should be allocated
for health and education.
Sen. Lacson reiterated
his position when he addressed the Summit of Youth Leaders for
the MDGs organized by the United Nations Youth Asociation of the
Philippines at Silliman University.
Yes,
BUT…
If
the proposed 2008 budget will be reviewed line by line a suspension
of VAT on oil can possibly be achieved . This can be done by trimming
the built-in fat in the budget for pork barrel, political expenditures,
and the like. BUT, care must be undertaken that expenditures for
MDGs are not affected.
Yes, the allocations
for MDGs must be increased even as irregular, unnecessary, excessive
and extravagant expenditures can be reduced. What is needed is
for the executive and the legislative to buckle down and go through
the 2008 budget with a fine-toothed comb, for once. They might
be surprised at the accumulation of fat that has been attached
to the budget all these years. For once, they should set aside
petty self interest and consider the plight of suffering Filipinos.
Public
officials and patriotism
During
the Diliman Governance Forum on "The Constitution and Governance"held
at the U.P. National College of Public Administration and Governance,
the panel of speakers were asked the same question: If a course
on citizenship would be offered, which of the values inculcated
in the Constitution should be given preference? The reactors,
Karl Miranda Assistant Secretary of Justice and Mayor Evelyn Paulino
put emphasis on the family. Reactor Golda Benjamin and main presentor,
Atty. Adel A. Tamano answered that nationalism and patriotism
should be given highest priority, especially at this time.
Well said.
I
survived PA 208…
My
graduate students in Public Administration Systems (P.A. 208)
are joking that they will wear t-shirts at the end of the semester
marked " I survived P.A. 208." It will have a picture
of their tyrannical professor cracking a whip.
That
is, if they will survive long enough to produce the t-shirt!
(Ms. Leonor Briones is a former National Treasurer of the Republic
of the Philippines. She is currently teaching at the University
of the Philippines' National College of Public Administration
and Governance. She is also a co-convenor of Social Watch Philippines.
She also writes a column for the Business Mirror)
Other Feature articles:
-
The Three Kings and the Business of Giving
- Treating our heroes
and heroines right
- Letter from afar
- Dog-Day afternoon
- On Doing the Right Thing
- One Statistics
- From A Distance
- Of Command and commandeered
votes
-
Coming soon: young bureaucracy?
-
What to do the morning after the night before
-
Out Where the Country Begins
-
Questions Begging for Answers
-
Attaining the MDGS: Are We Really On Track?
-
The sky is not falling?
-
The Governance of Fraternities
-
Bribery, Debt and Borrowing
-
In Praise of the Senate
-
Recapturing the Power of the Purse
-
Making History Softly
