Senator Sonny Angara, Senate finance committee chairperson on Tuesday said the government will be spending P14.4 billion on a daily basis next year.
He noted that only P10 billion of this amount can be supported by revenues to be raised by the different agencies of the government.
The P4.4 billion, Angara noted, is the deficit that must be financed by debt.
“Yan ang patak ng metro natin kada 24 oras. Before the sun sets, we need to collect P7.2 billion. And before the sun rises, we need to collect again P7.2 billion,” Angara, in his sponsorship speech of the P5.268 trillion budget in 2023, said.
He also said it is much better to review the budget on a daily basis.
“How much the government will spend–and borrow–every day next year gives a much clearer picture of the huge funding gap which must be plugged by borrowings,” he said.
Angara sponsored the committee report on the 2023 General Appropriations Bill (GAB).
According to Angara, these easy-to-memorize numbers should be a sobering reminder that the government has no ‘unli’ resources to fund daily costs.
Due to this, he noted it is very crucial to boost the economy, adding that the budget is an instrument to provide jobs and taxes.
“All of the above calls for smart budgeting, where nothing is wasted or delayed,” he said.
As maiden budgets of new administrations go, he said the said budget was expedited, and “delivered to us in an impressive seven weeks after inauguration day.”
“But it will be wrong to say that its components were mostly salvaged from the fiscal workshop of the past administration,” Angara said.
He said President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has made it clear in his message that every peso that he seeks to spend in 2023 is aligned with his administration’s thrusts.
“And what are these? Boost growth. Cut poverty. Trim the deficit. Pare debt. And catapult us to the league of upper middle-income nations,” he said.
The conventional way of introducing the national budget, he said, is to trot out its macroeconomic assumptions, upon which expenditures are anchored. He said GDP growth, forecast oil prices, inflation, peso-dollar exchange, and interest rates do shape the contours of the budget.
However, he said macropolitical and other exigent conditions can also cause “tectonic shifts” in the government’s fiscal position.
Some like calamities, manmade and natural, often come in during the middle of the budget season unannounced, leaving bills which put a squeeze into an already tight budget.
In crafting next year’s budget! Angara acknowledged that as the population grows, the budget must also grow.
He said the budget must also grow with the prices and the inflation spikes operating expenses by the government, a bulk buyer of goods and services.
“We have an infrastructure deficit in the trillions of pesos. On top of this is the pressure to conduct asset preservation on our aging public works. For us to grow—crumbling infrastructure cannot compete for investments—it is imperative that we hike capital outlays spending yearly. “
The plenary debate and interpellations on the GAB meanwhile will commence on Wednesday, starting with the General Principles in the morning session.
For the afternoon session, the following will be taken up:
• DBM
• Budgetary Support to Government Corporations
• Allocation to Local Government Units
• Contingent fund, MPBF, NDRRMF, Pension and Gratuity Fund and Unprogrammed Appropriations
• DOF
• NEDA
• Joint Legislative-Executive Councils- LEDAC (Sen. Tolentino to defend)
The interpellations will continue on Thursday. There is no scheduled session on Friday.
Interpellations are expected to last until Wednesday the following week, after which the Finance Committee will accept and compile the individual amendments of senators. Approval of the Senate version of the General Appropriations(GAB) is expected to be on November 21.
Once approved, the Bicameral Conference Committee meetings will be held to reconcile the conflicting versions of the House and Senate GABs. The target is to have the Bicameral Committee Report ratified by December 5.