Aquino submits 2013 budget to Congress

PRESIDENT Benigno Aquino III on Tuesday submitted to Congress the proposed P2.006-trillion national budget for 2013.
In his budget message, Aquino said this year’s budget is important in the administration’s continuing pursuit of good governance.

“The expenditure program is consistent with our macroeconomic and fiscal aspiration for the next fiscal year and in the medium-term. Above that, this budget is a crucial step in our continuing pursuit of good governance—governance that will give our impoverished countrymen the opportunity to lift themselves out of their situations; governance that will ensure that this country moves forward together,” the President said.
“This is why we have crafted a budget of empowerment,” he added.
The 2013 Empowerment budget is 10.5 percent or P190 billion higher than this year’s budget. It represents 16.8 percent of the country’s projected gross domestic product (GDP), said Budget Secretary Florencio Abad said.
The proposed budget is also based on a higher growth assumption of 6.0-7.0 percent, he added.
Abad, who today presented the Budget of Expenditures and Sources of Financing and other supporting budget documents to the House of Representatives, noted that the budget intends to sustain the fiscal momentum set in 2011 and 2012 to ensure long-term and sustainable growth in the country.
“In crafting the 2013 budget, the Aquino administration was determined to build on the gains we have so far posted, as well as encourage more robust and inclusive fiscal growth in the coming year and beyond,” he said.
“At the same time, we recognized the need to widen up citizen engagement in designing next year’s budget. To truly empower Filipinos with this budget, we intensified civic society and grassroots involvement in budget preparations so that the resulting expenditure plan accounts for the needs of the ordinary Filipino,” he further said.
The Department of Education (DepEd) will continue to receive the bulk of the 2013 budget, in line with Aquino’s agenda to improve the quality of public education in the country.
Buoyed by a total allocation of P292.7 billion for 2013—up by 22.6 percent from the agency’s 2012 budget—the DepEd will plug up all resource gaps for classrooms, teachers, and textbooks by the end of 2013.
The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) takes the second-largest share which is in line with Aquino’s goal of strengthening the country’s infrastructure base and fueling economic growth.
With a total 2013 budget of P152.9 billion—higher by 21 percent than its current year allocation—the DPWH will focus on preserving the existing road network, upgrading and constructing bridges, and completing the national road and bridge network by 2016.
The Department of National Defense will receive a total of P121.6 billion, up by 12.5 percent from its 2012 budget. The Department of Interior and Local Government will likewise receive a budgetary boost of 21.3 percent from its current year’s allocation, bringing the agency’s proposed 2013 budget to P121.1 billion.
The Department of Agriculture will get a 20.6-percent increase in its 2013 budget, with its total allocation rising to P74.1 billion. The increase will support the agency’s goal to achieve food self-sufficiency by 2013.
The DOH will receive the highest budgetary increase for the next fiscal year with P56.8 billion allotted to the agency, up by 24 percent from its allocation in 2012. The increase will help the administration advance its universal health care agenda for all Filipinos, particularly the poor and vulnerable.
For the 2013 budget preparation process, the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) launched the Bottom-Up Budgeting approach, through which 609 of the poorest municipalities were tasked to develop Local Poverty Reduction Action Plans, along with other local communities and civil society organizations (CSOs) in their jurisdictions. These plans were then submitted to the National Government for consideration into the 2013 Empowerment Budget.
Taking its cue from budget preparations in 2012, the administration expanded its engagement with civil society organizations (CSOs), bringing the number of agencies with CSO consultations from six departments and three government-owned or -controlled corporations (GOCCs) to 12 departments and six GOCCs.
The twelve departments are the education, health, social welfare and development, public works and highways, agriculture, agrarian reform, transportation and communications, tourism, environment and natural resources, labor and employment, justice and interior and local government.
GOCCs that consulted with CSOs are the National Food Authority, National Housing Authority and the National Home Mortgage and Finance Corporation, National Irrigation Authority, National Electrification Authority, and the Light Rail Transit Authority.
“By tapping our partners in civil society and hundreds of in-need communities in the Philippines, we were able to shape a budget with an intensified focus on the fulfillment of President Aquino’s Social Contract. And because the expenditure blueprint is anchored in the principle of good governance, we can complete priority projects much faster and with greater transparency and accountability,” Abad said.
Through the proposed 2013 National Budget, the Aquino administration sustains its comprehensive support of the Social Services sector, which received a 13.9-percent increase in its budget.
The total allocation—now standing at P698.4 billion—will be used to close goods-and-service delivery gaps in public education, health, and social protection for the poor and vulnerable in the next fiscal year.
Meanwhile, the Economic Services sector has been allotted a total of P511.1 billion for 2013, up by 16.4 percent from its 2012 budget of P439 billion. The increase will support rapid, sustained, and inclusive growth that redounds to all Filipinos in a direct, immediate, and sustainable manner.
General Public Services take the third largest share of the budget with a P346.1-billion allocation, higher by eight percent than its current appropriation of P320.3 billion.
Debt Services will receive P333.9 billion in the next fiscal year, while Defense will claim a total of P89.7 billion in 2013.
Net Lending will receive P26.5 billion in allocations, up by 15.2 percent from its current year’s budget.
In a press conference at the House, the Budget Secretary said the executive targets the enactment of a General Appropriations Act by December 13, 2012.
House committee on appropriations chairman Joseph Emilio Abaya, for his part, committed to finish budget deliberations in a month.
“We don’t see the possibility of having a reenacted budget,” Abaya said.
http://www.sunstar.com.ph/manila/local-news/2012/07/24/aquino-submits-2013-budget-congress-233828

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Creekside Road near Centennial Expo,
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0915-542-6250 (Jeramie)