Abad welcomes budget approval

Budget Secretary Florencio B. Abad on Thursday welcomed Congress’ approval of the proposed 2016 budget.

“We are happy to hear of Congress’ ratification of the P3.002-trillion 2016 national budget, capping as it does the [budget department’s] hard work in crafting a national budget that will create greater inclusive growth,” Abad said in a statement. “More importantly, this budget will be the final one created under the Aquino administration, and one that is vastly different from the budgets that were created before President Aquino’s term.”

Abad said the first budget in 2011 “brought about a new era in budgeting.”

“Under the thrust of daang matuwid (righteous path), we’ve managed to deliver the budget on time for six straight years, trim wasteful spending, plug budget leakages, and made the budget information available online,” Abad said.

“More importantly, we created genuine relationships with civil society groups as we included them in the budget process.”

Abad said reforming the budget process showed commitment to good governance.

He added: “These reforms range from the President’s social contract in 2012, which made sure the people’s taxes were spent on priority programs; bottom-up budgeting in 2013 that involved communities in the budget process; the performance-informed budget and the General Appropriations Act-as-release document in 2014 that helped improve budget execution; and other reforms that focused resources on 44 of the poorest and most vulnerable provinces in 2015.”