Speaker Gloria Macapagal Arroyo on Monday said she would push her earlier move to increase by about P20 billion the proposed P123.7-billion allocation for 2019 of the Department of Agriculture.
Arroyo made the statement as she reiterated her appeal to the House small committee on appropriations to increase the budget of the DA by P20 billion to help in further lowering inflation.
“The House had increased the budget of DA by P20 billion upon my instruction because I noticed that since my administration, the budget for DA had dropped significantly,” Arroyo said in statement.
With the impending passage of the 2019 budget by the Senate, Arroyo said she will instruct the House members of the bicameral committee to make sure that the P20 billion remain in the final budget.
“We have to make sure the increase in the DA budget is retained in the final budget because it will enable the DA to implement measures that will help farmers and increase production needed to control inflation,” Arroyo said.
Arroyo earlier pointed out a correlation between the budget allotted a department to the growth in the particular sector it manages.
“As we were analyzing the budget, we realized that from six percent of the budget in my time, agriculture went down afterwards to 1.5 percent. No wonder we have shortage of food,” Arroyo earlier said.