Congress suffers cuts as Aquino’s close allies corner budget hikes

THE horse-trading between Congress and the Palace continued over pork barrel allocations despite a deal announced Friday that gave congressmen an extra P75 million in funding for projects in their districts.

The deal, which was supposed to ensure smooth sailing for President Benigno Aquino III’s P1.645-trillion budget next year, started to look shaky again after lawmakers pointed out that the agencies led by Liberal Party officials and members of the so-called Hyatt 10 took the lion’s share of the budget.

The agencies that lost funding were those led by officials identified with Vice President Jejomar Binay.

Lawmakers provided the Manila Standard with a nine-page list of the 25 top gainers and losers, which were culled from the Budget Department.

Budget Secretary Florencio Abad, a Liberal Party stalwart and Mr. Aquino’s campaign manager in the last elections, along with Palace officials, decided which agencies would be granted an increase in funding and which would see their budgets slashed.

Among the top gainers were the offices of Social Welfare Secretary Corazon Soliman, Education Secretary Armin Luistro, Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin, Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo, and Transportation and Communication Secretary Jose de Jesus.

Abad and Soliman were members of the Hyatt 10 that resigned from the Cabinet in July 2005 after then President Gloria Arroyo was accused of election fraud.

Those who suffered major cuts were Angelito Banayo of the National Food Authority, Proceso Alcala of the Agriculture Department, Virgilio de los Reyes of the Agrarian Reform Department, and both houses of Congress.

House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. of the Liberal Party, whose chamber is still dominated by the Lakas-Kampi party, is now negotiating with the Palace to restore its budgetary cuts. The House and the Senate suffered cuts of P853 million and P1.2 billion, respectively.

An Waray Rep. Bem Noel, chairman of the committee on accounts, said the House had already written the Budget Department to restore the cuts.

“The Palace must have forgotten that the House will not have the budget for an increase in salaries of some 4,000 House employees as mandated by the Salary Standardization Law,” Noel said.

House Minority Leader Edcel Lagman said the President should consider submitting a supplemental budget to Congress.

On top of a P29-billion budget for its dole to the poorest of the poor, the Social Welfare Department was given an P18.88 billion increase, bringing its budget next year to P34.26 billion from this year’s P15.37 billion. The department also received the National Food Authority’s P8-billion budget for rice procurement and farmers’ subsidy.

The third biggest gainer was the Defense Department, which was granted an 81 percent increase, and to P104.67 billion from this year’s P57.83 billion.

Gazmin once served as the Presidential Security Guard chief under Aquino’s mother, the late President Corazon Aquino. Gazmin’s general headquarters was granted P29.41 billion, the Philippine Veterans Affairs Office was allotted P12.7 billion, while the Army, Air Force and Navy got P3.07 billion, P875 million and P730 million, respectively.

The budget for the Armed Forces modernization fund of P5 billion was taken away.

The Education Department will get an increase of P33.31 billion, bringing the budget total to P206.27 billion for 2011 compared to this year’s P172.96 billion.

The Interior Department had a 32.7-percent increase, and to P88.17 billion from this year’s P66.45 billion, with the National Police getting an increase of P19.55 billion.

The Transport and Communications Department received P32.34 billion for an 88.5-percent increase.

Some programs from the previous administration, including the Kilos Asenso Support Fund and the Pasig River Rehabilitation Commission, lost funding in the 2011 budget. All these budgetary cuts, along with the NFA’s rice subsidy allocation, were realigned to Soliman’s conditional cash transfer program, a dole to poor families.

The 122.9-percent increase Social Welfare’s budget prompted Senator Francis Escudero to complain that the Budget Department slashed the appropriation for 55 hospitals across the country by P364 million and four Quezon City hospitals by P971 million.

Christine Herrera, Manila Standard Today