National budget making, Philippine-style

"Does it need a review?"

To say that this country’s national budget-making system leaves much to be desired is very probably the greatest understatement of this woe-begotten year.

Throughout our post-World War II history, the people of this country have been witnesses to the despicable process by which members of the legislative — essentially the House of Representatives — are allowed to engage in “pork-barreling,” i.e., participate in the selection of the contractors that will undertake the projects for which f???have been appropriated in the GAA (General Appropriations Act) for the upcoming year.

More recently, the Filipino people have also witnessed the increasingly prevalent activity of inserting appropriations for projects that were not included in the list of expenditures approved by other congressional chambers in the plenary session.

The discord and confusion that attended the penultimate stage of the 2019 GAA’s approval — over P75 billion worth of unauthorized insertions – has been widely blamed for the Philippine economy’s below-projection performance in that year.

As if these malpractices are not deplorable enough, now comes a report whose essence strikes at the very heart of the national-budget making process in the republic version of democratic government.

In that process, the respective functions of the political departments of the government are clearly laid out in the Constitution. The function of the Executive Department is to prepare a national budget for the upcoming year, detailing the sources and uses of the Treasury funds– the uses are listed in the NEP (National Expenditure Program), the function of the legislative is to examine the proposed budget (1) to determine whether the budget is financially sound with proposed expenditures totally on largely financed with non-borrowed resources, (2) to evaluate the constant economic values of the proposed expenditures and (3) to determine the efficiency with which the Executive departments, agencies and offices utilized their budgetary allocations for the outgoing year. 

Clearly, these determinants and evaluative activities of the legislature cannot be performed without a thorough examination of the entire proposed GAA by the legislature. Congress must go beyond looking at the first few stages of a usually voluminous document. 

Thoroughly examine the proposed 2021 GAA apparently is what Congress has failed to do. According to an unrefuted news report, the budgets of in less than 38 departments, agencies, and offices will be going to the bicameral committee without having been thoroughly approved, examined by the two chambers of Congress. The 38 instrumentalities are headed by14 Cabinet departments, including the Department of Public Works and Highways and the Department of Transportation. This revelation is mind-boggling. How is it possible for the bicameral committee to sensibly discuss this or that Build, Build, Build  project without reports at least from the concerned Congressional committees?

This is national budget making, Philippine-style. Does the approach to the making of the annual GAA need a thorough review? It does. And that is the second greatest understatement of 2020.