The House of Representatives’ committee on appropriations will suspend effective on Monday deliberations on the proposed 2019 national budget amid the opposition of lawmakers to the cash-based budgeting system of the Department of Budget and Management.
“The House will be suspending budget briefings until further notice,” the panel’s chairman, Davao City Rep. Karlo Alexei Nograles said Saturday.
Nograles said the decision to “hold all budget briefings until further notice” was the decision of the House leadership.
But Nograles is hopeful Congress’ ongoing clash with the Department of Budget and Management over the 2019 budget would not result in a reenacted budget.
Nograles also assured the public that Congress would pass a General Appropriations Act that would benefit the people and consistent with the development agenda of President Rodrigo Duterte.
“Our job in Congress is to ensure the passage of a budget that is in line with the vision of the President, a budget that benefits all Filipinos, especially those in the regions. In this cash-based budget of the DBM, the Filipinos, especially probinsyanos, are shortchanged,” said Nograles.
Lawmakers crossed party lines to oppose the DBM’s new cash-based budgeting system, which has resulted in across-the-board cuts in the budgets of critical agencies like the Department of Education, the Department of Health, and the Department of Public Works and Highways.
The budgets of the said agencies were reduced by P77 billion, P35 billion and P95 billion, respectively.
Similarly, House majority leader and Camarines Sur Rep. Rolando Andaya Jr. voiced concern over the P35-billion budgetary cuts in the Department of Health’s allocation under the proposed 2019 national budget.
“There are budgetary cuts in the Health department. It hits a major artery of government service, “ Andaya said, referring to the P35-billion cut in the proposed DoH budget, or from P109 billion this year to P74 billion next year.
Andaya said the virtual cancellation of the Health Facilities Enhancement Program, from the 2018 level of P30.3 billion to P100 million next year, accounted for the bulk of the cuts.
Began during the Aquino administration, HFEP is a multiyear program to improve health facilities such as hospitals and barangay health stations but was recently mired in controversies as regards to alleged irregularities in its implementation.
“One downside of the proposed DoH budget cut is the possible displacement of medical professionals under its health deployment program where doctors, nurses, midwives, dentists are sent to rural areas and urban centers with high poverty incidence,” Andaya, former Budget secretary, said.
While he expressed reservations over the mulled DoH budget reduction, Andaya praised the hike in the government’s budget for the PhilHealth enrollment of indigent households, from the current P60.6 billion to next year’s P67.4 billion.
Next year, the national government will adopt the cash-budgeting system that calls for the payment of goods and services on the same year that they were acquired.
But with this policy of the DBM, Nograles said instead of “Build, Build, Build,” it will now be “Slash, Slash, Slash.”
Nograles said the ongoing budget deliberations in the House of Representatives “have opened our eyes to the drawbacks of the proposed cash-based budgeting system.”
“This is the complete opposite of the ‘Build, Build, Build’ thrust of the Duterte administration. The people expect more infrastructure, more assistance from the government. Instead, the budget presented by the DBM is all about ‘Slash, Slash, Slash,’ which would result in fewer of everything: fewer roads, fewer classrooms, fewer government hospital facilities,” said Nograles.
Nograles said many of his colleagues in the House were determined to exhort the DBCC “to amend the budget to one that is more attuned to the situation on the ground.”
“We will revert to an obligations-based budget. It is not just us in Congress who have issues with cash-based budgeting; even members of the cabinet who have faced us have issues, too. The requirements of a cash-based budget simply do not reflect the realities of governance,” Nograles added.
In separate budget hearings this week, several points were raised with regard to the inapplicability of the new DBM budget scheme.
Commission on Higher Education officer-in-charge Prospero de Vera III told lawmakers the cash-based budget system would “severely hamper” the implementation of Republic Act 10931 or the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act.
De Vera said CHED would encounter problems with the shift to a cash-based budget system as the fiscal year and academic year are not aligned.
“We will be severely hampered in implementing RA 10931… first in estimating reimbursements, second in determining which reimbursements will be given, and third in utilizing the budget allocated by Congress.”
In another hearing, DPWH Secretary Mark Villar admitted that the shift to a cash-based budgeting would be “challenging” for his agency.
Villar said his department had to make adjustments due to the cash-based budgeting system, as it requires disbursements to be made within the fiscal year.
“We have to make sure that our timelines are extremely accurate. We have to make sure preparations [for] our projects are all on time… It’s more challenging,” said the former lawmaker.
Nograles, a three-term congressman, said that experience has shown that such scenarios, while ideal, were difficult to guarantee.
“Many projects do not get completed on time for various valid reasons, like justifiable delays in procurement, legal challenges, fund release problems, and even the weather. We recognize that the DBM wants more spending efficiency, but this can be achieved through other means, without cutting the budget.”