Aquino set to sign P3.002-T nat’l budget for 2016 Tuesday

PRESIDENT Benigno Aquino III will sign on Tuesday morning the P3.002-trillion national budget for next year—the biggest so far in the country’s history, which the Department of Budget and Management claimed supports the administration’s inclusive growth agenda.

According to Budget Secretary Florencio “Butch” Abad, the 2016 General Appropriations Act (GAA) “represents the government’s commitment to invest in people.”

“This is a budget that is twice more than the national budget when this administration took over in 2010. It also provides the highest allocations on social and economic services compared to the budgets under previous administrations,” Abad said in a statement on Monday.

“But more than that, this is a budget that caps six straight years of high-impact budget reforms that plugged leakages in the budget, aligned spending with results, streamlined budget release procedures, sped up disbursements, and capacitated agencies to fast track the implementation of programs,” the Budget chief added.

Abad said they worked during these past five years of the Aquino administration to make budget information more accessible to the public. The budget-planning process now also closely engages communities, he said. “These reforms have enhanced the operational efficiency of agencies, as well as accountability and transparency in the budget process.”

For instance, Abad cited the Bottom-Up Budgeting (BuB) program, under which 1,590 cities and municipalities or 92 percent of the total participate in “demand-driven” budget planning.

Under the BuB, P24.7 billion will be spent next year to implement 14,000 projects. “Through BuB, we have institutionalized people’s participation in the budget process to gain a better understanding of their needs and requirements, and ensure that these are met,” he said.

The Budget chief also cited among the budget reforms introduced by the Aquino government the implementation of the GAA-as-release document, adoption of performance-informed budgeting, and creation of full-time delivery units.

“The introduction of the GAA-as-release-document ushered in a budget regime in which the GAA is the primary fund release document. That is, agency budgets are practically released the moment the national budget is enacted,” Abad explained.

“The GAA-as-release-document regime facilitated the swift and efficient implementation of the administration’s expenditure program because it allowed agencies to enter into contracts and kick-start the procurement process on the very first working day of the fiscal year. This is because the disaggregated budget items in the GAA are already considered released to their respective agencies,” he noted.

As for the performance-informed budgeting scheme, Abad said its adoption “made the budget more understandable to the layman because it simplified budget presentation.”

“It also made it easier to gauge the performance of an agency. Compared to the traditional line item-based budgeting, it links funding to results. This strengthens the linkages between planning, budgeting and outcomes and enhancing transparency and accountability in the allocation of limited resources,” he added.

Through the creation of full-time delivery units, meanwhile, “agencies were directed to facilitate the prompt implementation of their programs,” according to Abad. “This enabled agencies to meet their targets and timelines and address the causes of underspending, such as problems in procurement.”

“I hope the next administration will build on these reforms to pursue greater efficiency in public spending and further enhance transparency accountability in the expenditure process,” Abad said.