The Lower House passed House Bill 6215, the 2018 national budget bill, on second reading last week. The Appropriations Committee is preparing the amendments to the budget before it returns to the floor for third reading.
The House members have been serious about scrutinizing the proposed budget of all government agencies during the committee and plenary deliberations. As the Minority Leader, I took advantage of the period of interpellation to raise our concerns on how these agencies allocate and spend their respective budgets. I have been very particular about the agencies’ absorptive capacities; thus, I have asked for their commitment to spending their budgets more efficiently in order to achieve 100 percent utilization. We were also able to push for a more active oversight committee to monitor and ensure that the funding received by all government offices will be spent pursuant to the General Appropriations Act.
The P3.8-trillion budget prioritizes social services and infrastructure development. The two biggest allocations were given to the Department of Education (DepEd), and the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), respectively. During the deliberations, we felt that some agencies deserve to receive more, while some would have to suffer from budget cuts due to their inefficiency.
We are expecting a P1-billion increase in the budget of the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (Tesda) for the provision of allowance to seminar attendees. This will encourage more attendees, especially those who have a great potential, but are unable to attend due to lack of money for transportation.
We are also looking forward to a P50-billion increase in the budget of the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources. Unfortunately, this agency’s budget was initially reduced by P1 billion despite various studies showing that our fish catch is severely depleted. After rice, fish is the second most important staple in a typical Filipino family table. BFAR needs a bigger budget to further develop our country’s aquaculture, which could address our food security concerns.
There will be a budget realignment for the implementation of RA 10931 or the “Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act,” which will provide free college tuition for students of 112 state universities and colleges.
Other concerns that we expect to be addressed by the government agencies with urgency are the country’s poor network connectivity, 3-digit number coding scheme to ease Metro traffic (DOTr), and the implementation of the Lateral Attrition Law (DOF).
Many Filipino citizens were opposed to the P1,000 budget received by each of three agencies. The Energy Regulatory Commission got a budget cut because of the issues hounding its office, such as the corruption of its officials and its failure to release several power supply agreements. The P1,000 budget of the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples was due to its failure to act on the killings of Lumad leaders. And the most controversial of all is the one received by the Commission on Human Rights. To clarify, I believe that the CHR serves an essential function in the government. This is of particular importance when the dignity of persons is at risk by acts of violence, which none of us can deny. That said, I am concerned by the Commissioner’s partisan leadership. We would recall that in June 2016, the CHR released the investigation result of the Kidapawan massacre that happened in April 2016. News reports stated that farmers’ groups, party-list congressmen and witnesses opposed the CHR report which seemed to side with the Aquino government despite evidence of excessive force by the police towards the farmers. Before Commissioner Chito Gascon was seated into position, the CHR’s field investigations reported grave rights violations in the Hacienda Luisita massacre of 2004, where 7 farmers were killed and hundreds were injured by police and army units. However, after more than a decade, nobody has been arrested and the Commissioner has not released updated pronouncements on the status of further investigations. While I appreciate that the CHR identifies human rights violations, it should not selectively do so.
The House members, including myself, as much as possible, want all government agencies to receive the right amount of appropriations for them to be able to fulfill their duties. However, previous events showed that some agencies failed to effectively carry out their responsibilities. Should the issues of the concerned agencies not be resolved, we will not hesitate to continue questioning their proposed budgets until the bicameral conference committee hearing.