A legislator from the Bicol region on Wednesday appealed to the Department of Budget and Management to take “a long hard look” at implementing cuts in the outlays for non-essential expenditures under this year’s P4.1-trillion national budget, with the would-be savings to be used to augment government funds for what could turn out to be a protracted battle against the 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.
Deputy Speaker Luis Ray Villafuerte said forced savings in non-essential spending such as those on foreign travel or the purchase of brand-new official vehicles and office supplies and equipment should go to a pool that the national government could use to expand and extend its programs to cushion the economic fallout from the pandemic.
The savings can also be used to better equip the country’s health workers in saving lives and treating infected Filipinos, he said.
“The Budget Secretary should take a long hard look at the possibility of effecting cuts in the 2020 budget outlays for non-essential expenditures,” he said.
While he welcomed the announcement by President Rodrigo Duterte’s economic team of a P27.1-billion fiscal stimulus package, Villafuerte said more funds could be needed for, say, living allowances for dislocated workers and cash transfers and food rations for underprivileged sectors to be hit the hardest by the community quarantine and the drawn-out economic slowdown, in the event of a prolonged health crisis spawned by COVID-19.
Apart from relief programs for the poor and other heavily-affected sectors, Villafuerte said the would-be savings could be used not only to purchase more rapid testing kits but also personal protective equipment sets for doctors, nurses and other health workers at the frontlines of the country’s battle against the lethal coronavirus.
“In case the pandemic is contained sooner than later, the Duterte administration could use the would-be savings to spend more on its priority programs on infrastructure and social services, which, in turn would further energize the domestic economy after the present health crisis,” said Villafuerte, a member of the Defeat COVID-19 Committee that Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano is creating as an advisory and coordinating committee for anti-pandemic legislative initiatives.
“But in the event of a prolonged health crisis that could last till the yearend or even longer, the government should have more than enough anti-COVID-19 resources to last for the long haul,” he added.
Villafuerte said savings of 5 to 10 percent of the 2020 General Appropriations Act is equivalent to P200 billion to P400 billion, which is a sizeable amount that the government could use for a protracted battle against the lethal pathogen.
