President Rodrigo Duterte has approved the proposed P4.1-trillion national budget for 2020, Malacañang said Monday night.
Presidential Spokesman Salvador Panelo said education had the biggest slice of the budget, followed by public works, transportation and health.
He also said the Budget department was targeting to submit the National Expenditure Program to Congress for its approval before the deadline on Aug. 21.
Panelo made his statement even as Senator Sonny Angara said Tuesday the anti-red tape performance of government agencies would now be part of the review for their 2020 appropriations.
Angara, head of the Senate Committee on Finance, said the coming budget hearings would look into the capacity of government agencies to implement their mandates to improve the ease of doing business in the country and provide more efficient service delivery.
“Anti-red tape performance will now be part of the budget review. These will also be part of the key performance indicators that an agency promises to meet in exchange for the appropriations it will get,” Angara said.
The budget proposal for 2020, which was approved in the 40th Cabinet meeting on Monday night, is higher than this year’s budget of P3.757 trillion.
Panelo said the fund would be spent widely to reach a “state of vibrant economy.”
“This budget proposal is designed to respond to the needs of the majority of our countrymen longing to be uprooted from the decades of want of basic necessities, inadequate supply of basic services, lack of infrastructures required to spur economic growth, the absence of accountability on government coffers, vexing bureaucratic rigmarole, deprived education and unchanged poverty, and geared to achieve a more peaceful and progressive Philippines where the living standards of Filipinos are raised,” Panelo said in a statement.
“We assure everyone that our people’s money…will be spent wisely to reach a state of vibrant economy that will be felt by the citizenry.” With PNA
