MANILA, Philippines—President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo urged local government officials not to waste their Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA) on “trimmings,” and instead, spend it on social services and employment generation projects.

Arroyo stressed the government’s drive against wasteful spending especially since the IRA would get a P40-billion boost this year from Value Added Tax (VAT) collections.

“Certainly, it would doubly worth the sacrifice, if you in the league take up the challenge now that you have this big increase in IRA to make sure that each province spend your IRA windfall prudently, not on trimmings but only on strategic programs that will keep us growing in spite of the slump in the world today,” she said in a speech before the Provincial Board Members League in Davao City on Friday.

Arroyo said that pushing for the VAT in 2005 was a “period of sacrifice,” but she was thankful that local governments supported her during that time.

“Indeed the government, national and provincial must pool all savings and revenue into programs that help the poor and the middle class, this includes more and more investments in education, health care, and infrastructure, which are well within the spending authorities of the provincial governments,” she said.

“To fund all the things we need to do, to keep the Philippine economy strong during this global economic crisis, we must cut government waste and that is at the national and provincial level,” she said.

The President said she was hoping that local governments adopt cost-cutting measures of the national government, including regulating the use of government vehicles, replacing lighting fixtures with energy efficient compact fluorescent bulbs, and turning off air-conditioning at 4:30 p.m., except in offices with 24-hour operation, among others.