MANILA (Mindanao Examiner / Dec. 21, 2013) – Philippine President Benigno Aquino on Friday signed the P2.265-trillion 2014 General Appropriations Act, setting the government’s expenditure program in motion and instituting a range of public spending reforms that will bring greater efficiency, transparency, accountability, and openness in the budget process.
The Department of Budget and Management said the 2014 budget is 13% higher than (by P258.7 billion) the 2013 GAA.
“As pioneered by the Aquino administration, the 2014 Performance-Informed Budget draws very clear connections between an agency’s budget and its expected output. With these details so explicitly laid out in next year’s GAA, the public can begin to demand greater accountability and efficiency from our agencies. It’s a reform path that can only lead to deeper citizen engagement and improved public service,” DBM Secretary Florencio Abad said in a statement.
In crafting next year’s budget, he said the DBM worked with all departments and agencies in specifying their respective targets.
He said an agency’s allocation for the entire fiscal year should actually support the accomplishment of its targets, as outlined in its Performance Information in the 2014 GAA. For example, the Bureau of Fire Protection’s budget for next year should allow it to respond to at least 5,185 fire calls in the National Capital Region within 5-7 minutes.
Meanwhile, the Department of Education, through the 2014 Performance-Informed Budget, has committed to enroll a total of 12.6 million children in kindergarten and elementary schools nationwide,” Abad explained.
The biggest share of the 2014 GAA continues to be devoted to Social Services, which will receive P841.8 billion or 37.2% of the total national budget. This includes budgetary support to the Administration’s ongoing Conditional Cash Transfer program (P62.6 billion), the construction and repair of public school classrooms (P44.6 billion), and the National Health Insurance Program (P35.3 billion).
Economic Services will also receive ample budgetary support, with P593.1 billion or 26.2 percent already set for it in the 2014 budget. Altogether, this includes a P94.3-billion allocation for paving national roads, P10.7 billion for technical support services that will benefit the country’s farmers, and P5.5 billion for tourism promotion.
The government’s Debt Burden and General Public Services corner 16.7% (P377.6 billion) and 16% (P362.6 billion) of the budget, respectively. Defense services under the Aquino administration get a 4% cut from the 2014 GAA, with a budget amounting to P89.5 billion.
DBM said the Aquino administration has also ramped up its support for disaster preparedness and post-disaster rehabilitation in the 2014 budget, with P13 billion set aside for the Calamity Fund—now dubbed the National Disaster Risk Reduction Management Fund—up by a whopping 73 percent over this year’s P7.5 billion.
Another P20 billion has also been allocated to the Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Program, while P80 billion has been channeled toward reconstruction projects under the ‘Unprogrammed Fund.’
Abad noted that the 2014 GAA is the product of improved citizen engagement in the development of the Administration’s proposed budget, as well as the Aquino government’s ability to respond to the country’s changing needs, in view of President Aquino’s broader socio-economic development program.
“We’re not just looking at a GAA that was shaped by the greater expansion of our Bottom-Up Budgeting program, where we worked with the country’s poorest communities to see how the National Budget could better serve their needs. We’re also looking at a GAA that introduces some groundbreaking changes, not least of which is the abolition of the Priority Development Assistance Fund, the beginning of the GAA-as-Release-Document regime, and the unprecedented support for disaster rehabilitation and preparation, especially in the wake of this year’s calamities.
“In a very real way, the 2014 budget is one that responds aptly to the times, one born of fruitful, sincere dialogue between the public and the Aquino administration. For instance, the clamor to abolish PDAF has persisted for decades, and only under this Administration was this call successfully heeded. It is exactly this pattern of citizen engagement that we believe in and aspire to, where Filipinos are further empowered to be our active partners in ensuring governance reform and inclusive growth in the country,” Abad said.
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