Abad submits P2.6-T nat’l budget

Budget Secretary Florencio Abad. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—Budget Secretary Florencio Abad presented a proposed P2.606-trillion national budget for 2015 during Friday’s six-hour-long Cabinet meeting.

Communications Secretary Herminio Coloma said the proposed budget is 15 percent higher than the current P2.265-trillion national budget.

Quoting Abad, Coloma said the key expenditures were for social protection and social services; job generation and economic expansion; climate change adaptation and mitigation, enabling environment for inclusive development.

On social protection, Abad proposed to increase the allocation for the conditional cash transfer program from P62.6 billion to P78 billion to cover the increase in beneficiaries from 4.3 million households to 5 million households.

Abad also proposed to raise the budget for the National Health Insurance Program from P35.3 billion to P37.2 billion, and for educational facilities from P44.6 billion to P52.7 billion, according to Coloma.

To promote job generation, Abad proposed an increase in the budget for national roads and bridges from P130.4 billion to P186.6 billion; and for tourism infrastructure development from P14.7 billion to P20 billion.

And to implement climate change adaptation and mitigation, the budget secretary proposed an increase in the allocation for flood control and drainage projects from P34.8 billion to P38.6 billion.

Coloma said President Aquino convened the Cabinet to review and discuss the national budget for 2015.

“After the meeting that lasted for more than six hours, the President directed the Cabinet to further fine-tune the budget assumptions and planning parameters so that these may be fully explained and justified at the hearings to be conducted by Congress,” Coloma reported.

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