Recto urges bigger ARMM budget to pave way for Bangsamoro

By: Norman Bordadora - 11 years ago

Senator Ralph Recto INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines — Senator Ralph Recto called on the executive branch Wednesday to increase the preliminary figure of a P20.4-billion budget for the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao in 2015, its last year before it is replaced by the Bangsamoro autonomous regional government.

In a statement, Recto said that a higher ARMM budget would benefit the Bangsamoro as the latter’s allocation, once it is in place, may in no case be less than the last appropriation received by the ARMM.

The ARMM “gets less than one percent of the national budget,” Recto said of the P19.6-billion allocation the ARMM was given in 2014.

“In fact if the PDAF hadn’t been abolished, it would have gotten a bigger slice in the budget pie than the ARMM government,” Recto added, referring to a P25.2-billion that would have been appropriated for the PDAF in this year’s national budget.

Recto added that even if the ARMM’s 2015 indicative budget would be P840 million bigger than this year’s, “in real terms it is still negative growth.”

“This is because if you add the population growth rate and the inflation rate, the sum is bigger than the 4.2 percent hike in the budget,” Recto said.

Recto made the comments on the eve of the signing of the peace agreement between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. The pact paves the way for the creation of the Bangsamoro autonomous region subject to a law that will be passed by Congress.

The Senate president pro tempore said whatever the result of the government peace deal with the MILF would be, “the central government has the obligation to give more funds to a region which though poor is rich in potential.”

“If next year is the ARMM government’s last hurrah, then the best goodbye gift we can give it is a bigger budget which in turn benefits the successor government because it will be using a higher base in asking for subsequent funds,” Recto said.

Recto said that under the Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro, the ARMM will continue to function until a Bangsamoro government has been elected by residents of areas which voted in a plebiscite to join it, in a manner provided by a Bangsamoro basic law passed by Congress.

He added that the Bangsamoro will receive from the national government an annual block grant, which, in the words of the peace agreement, “shall in no case be less than the last budget received by the ARMM.”

Recto said this will include not just the ARMM government’s budget “but all the funds spent in the region.”

He said this includes the P15.7 billion Internal Revenue Allocation to ARMM’s five provinces, three cities, 116 towns and 2,490 barangays; the Bottom-Up Budgeting allocation of P4.6 billion; and other “regionalized” spending of the national government.

“In all, the amount would be in the neighborhood of P44 billion to P50 billion. If you want to pin a price tag then that would be the minimum,” Recto said.

“Hopefully, this amount will be reduced in the future, as the new government will be financially self-reliant because fiscal independence is the hallmark of autonomy,” he added.

Recto said that budgetary allocation remains government’s most effective equity in the peace project.

“There are costs in pounding swords into plows,” Recto said. “Yes, peace has a price but from a funding point of view an imperfect peace is still less costly than a just war.”