MANILA, Philippines?The government boasts of having powered 95 percent of barangays, and targets full coverage by 2020. There?s a problem though: Malacañang has zeroed out the budget for rural electrification in 2011.

Malacañang slashed to zero the National Electrification Administration?s proposed P2 billion budget for electrification next year, Administrator Edith Bueno told the House appropriations committee yesterday.

Hearing this, Nueva Vizcaya Rep. Carlos Padilla wondered how the agency could achieve its target of electrifying all barangays and sitios across the country 10 years from now.

?If those are not energized, what you are presenting here is abstract,? he told the officials during the hearing on the Department of Energy?s P1.367-billion budget for 2011.

Congressional insertions

According to officials, 95 percent of barangays and 69 percent of sitios across the country have been electrified.

Dismayed by the huge cuts in the budgets of agencies such as NEA, opposition lawmakers were taking up their cause, and vowed to increase these through congressional insertions.

House leaders, however, were standing by President Benigno Aquino III?s P1.645-trillion National Expenditure Program, and their ground against the practice of inserting appropriations for pet projects in the proposed budget.

?We?ll take the risk,? Padilla said, referring to the possible non-implementation of congressional insertions. ?I don?t need the SWS (Social Weather Stations) to show how electrification can improve the economy of rural areas.?

If the government allotted P7.3 billion subsidy for the fare of Metro Rail Transit commuters, why could it not do the same for the electrification of 30,000 sitios in the countryside? he said.

Zambales Rep. Milagros Magsaysay pushed for the realignment of some P1 billion from the Department of Social Welfare and Development?s P21-billion allotment for Pantawid Pamilya Program for electrification.

?I will help lobby for sitio electrification,? she said, recalling that some P611-million congressional insertion for electrification in the 2010 budget had not been released.

Realistic budget

Committee chair, Cavite Rep. Joseph Emilio Abaya, said he would try to ?look after everyone?s concern? and coordinate with the Department of Budget and Management for the possible release of such fund.

?I?ll work it out if it won?t violate any law,? he said.

On the proposals to increase the budgets of agencies, Speaker Feliciano Belmonte told reporters: ?Nope, this is a realistic budget.?

Belmonte said the proposed congressional insertions would be studied, but Abaya rejected these outright.

Both acknowledged that in the past administration funding for such insertions was sourced from the automatic appropriations, including those for debt servicing.

For instance, some P65 billion worth of congressional insertions were taken from the automatic appropriations for debt servicing in the 2010 budget.