The Department of Budget and Management is a key player in the drama of national economic governance. DBM has the mandate of managing and distributing among the components of the government—mainly through SAROs (special allotment release orders)—the revenues generated by the collection agencies of the Department of Finance. DBM efficiency completes the trio of requirements of good management of the nation’s finances; the other requirements being DoF efficiency and the good crafting of the annual General Appropriations Act (the national budget, for short).
When President Duterte announced his appointment of Dr. Benjamin Diokno as Secretary of Budget and Management, I cheered. I did so for several reasons.
The first was that Dr. Diokno has been known to be a good and honest person, a worthy exemplar of the saying that good fruit do not fall far from a good tree. Diokno has been Secretary of Budget and Management previously—during the administration of President Joseph Estrada—and his prior incumbency was attended by good management.
Additionally, Benjamin Diokno is a good economist. An economics professor at the University of the Philippines, Diokno is well aware of the importance of sound budget crafting and implementation to a country’s economic development. He knows that the slow and erratic development of an economy is usually traceable to flawed budgeting and misuse of the nation’s financial resources.
A further reason for my pleasure over the news of Dr. Diokno’s appointment was the fact that he was one of the petitioners in the campaign to get the Supreme Court to declare the Priority Development Assistance Fund unconstitutional.
If there was any doubt as to where Diokno stood on the issue of PDAF and PDAF-type use of government financial resources, his involvement in the anti-PDAF campaign surely put an end to that.
If I have decided to take up the PDAF issue again, it is because of a rumor that I have heard—from a usually reliable Congressional source—that PDAF, which the Supreme Court in a 2012 decision roundly declared unconstitutional, is back and that the members of Congress are again singing the old beerhall song “Happy Days Are Here Again.” Truth to tell, I have heard the rumor more than once.
When I first heard it, I was inclined to reject it out of hand, but two thoughts then crossed my mind. One thought was that at the start of the current Congressional session, Ben Diokno invited each of the members of the House of Representatives to propose for DBM consideration P70 million worth of projects for their respective districts. My reaction to that was quick. I wrote that while it was unrealistic to believe that Congressmen will not seek to bring bacon home to their districts, the proper and economically sound process was for them to approach not DBM, which by its very nature is a highly political institution, but Neda (National Economic and Development Authority), which was designed to operate more along economic-development than along political lines. I thought that the explanation offered by Secretary Diokno for his action was disingenuous and unrealistic.
I continue to have faith in Dr. Diokno’s professional integrity, but I have to admit that the rumors have delivered something like an Intensity 2.0 shock to me. His having a hand in the resurgence of PDAF will deal a long-term blow to his still-intact reputation.
I realize that there are several hundred creatures—the members of the supermajority—that want to take their turn at the trough fall of budgetary swill, but you have to stand your ground, Dr. Diokno.
So, tell me and your other admiring colleagues that the PDAF rumor isn’t true, Ben.
E-mail: rudyromero777@yahoo.com