DAVAO CITY – A militant lawmaker urged the public to guard the national budget for next year as this would probably be used as an election budget.
Bayan Muna Representive Karlos Ysagani Zarate in a press conference Monday said the 2016 national budget is “in aid of the upcoming election.”
“Historically this is the highest budget proposal since 1928,” Zarate described the P3.002 trillion budget.
Zarate said the 2016 national budget includes lump sum funds.
“In the 2015 budget, there is at least P500 billion lump sum funds. Next year, no less than, at least P400 billion in lump sum funds is included in the 2016 national budget,” Zarate said adding that there are Special Purpose Funds under the Office of the President.
“Kung ang 2015 budget, we call that as the election budget. Kining 2016 ang tan-aw namo is still a continuing budget in aid of the election (If we call the 2015 budget as the election budget, we see the 2016 budget as a continuing budget in aid of the election),” he said.
“You can see where the bulk of the budget is distributed,” he said citing as example the budget for Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) with “almost P70 billion.”
“Remember when this CCT started during the time of (former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo) it only has around P5 billion,” he said.
News reports had previously said, the CCT budget was P299 million in 2008, P5 billion in 2009 and P10 billion in 2010.
The 2011 budget for CCT was P29.2 billion, P39.4 billion in 2012, P44.3 billion in 2013, and P62.6 billion in 2014.
Zarate said there is still the budget is still rigged with the prohibited Disbursement Acceleration program.
“The Supreme Court said the executive department cannot declare savings at any time it wants, and centralize it into one common fund, unya bisan asa na lang niya dal-on (and it would allot it to anywhere it wants),” he said.
“Now we saw it in the definition of savings of Malacanang. Gibalik niya tong definition of savings nga gi-reject na sa Congress (It again used the definition of savings previously rejected by the Congress),” Zarate said.
“That is why during the budget presentation of (Budget Secretary Florencio Abad) two weeks ago, I questioned the bringing back of the definition of savings that will allow Malacanang to declare savings at any time, especially in the middle of the year,” he said.
He said that was what happened with DAP before when Malacanang treat as savings the budget which was not obligated by June 30 from a department.
“Malacanang will say that this will be savings and they can just bring this amount to any department they choose. That’s why we call it Pork Barrel because it is up to the Palace where to put the money, whom to give it to and what project to spend it to, ” he said.
Zarate said they only have “18 session days to pass the budget” as per Malacanang’s timeline they need to pass it by October 9.(davaotoday.com)
