Civil society organizations belonging to Alternative Budget Initiative (ABI) serenade today the Congressional bicameral committee to seriously consider in the deliberations of the 2008 budget the proposal to allocate P20 billion more for social expenditures and reduce debt payments.
Wearing Santa hats, the group sings their demands to the tune of Filipino Christmas songs demanding more funds for education, health, environment and agriculture while appealing for transparency on the deliberation of the General Appropriations Act of 2008.
ABI, composed of forty eight civil society groups led by Social Watch, urges the bicameral committee to tap P80 billion worth of funds as alternative sources of financing. It includes P21 billion worth of debt-related funds identified by the Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC) from:
· P12. 5 billion savings out of a more realistic exchange rate of P 42 to a dollar, instead of Malacanang's bloated P 48 to a dollar forecast.
· P 5.1 billion from "payments" of proposed loans for programs, projects and bonds which are not covered by Section 26 (b) book 6 of the Revised Administrative Code of 1987 which provides for the automatic appropriations on debt servicing.
· P 4 billion worth of suspended payments to illegitimate debts which are challenged to be fraudulent, wasteful and useless.
Prof. Leonor Magtolis Briones, Co-convenor of Social Watch asks Congress to use another P 60 billion worth of funds designated for the repair and purchase of helicopters and other air transportation requirement under the Office of the President and other budget items found to be vulnerable to presidential discretion and difficult to exact accountability and transparency.
"The bicameral committee also known as the "third House" should craft the budget with the interest of the people on top of their concern. The public will not have the opportunity to take part in the process but the results of their deliberation will affect the lives of millions of Filipinos," said
Briones said the meeting will be exclusive to the legislators and the outcome of the meeting should be reported to the people.
The bicameral committee starts its deliberation today to reconcile the versions of the House and Senate of the General Appropriations Act.
"Measures to reduce poverty may be dangerously sacrificed to achieve the government's projection of achieving a balanced budget. We have seen in 2007 that a balanced budget can be attained not by improved tax revenue collection but by aggressive privatization of our country's assets and under spending on social expenditures, " said Briones.
Around P7.6 B of the House of Representatives' General Appropriations Bill (GAB) can be traced to the P20B ABI budget proposal for health, education, environment and agriculture.
"The amount is still very low and the Senate's move to disregard the House version of the appropriations bill and revert back to the original proposal of the Executive was more unfortunate, " said Briones.
Social Watch earlier criticized the Senate's P4B cut in the House-approved appropriation for health and the Senate's allocation of P5 million for seedling banks to "reforest" the highways while disregarding the environment groups' proposal to provide funding for community-based forestry program.
The group also proposed to scrap the subsidy allocation for hybrid rice amounting to P450 million and use this fund to support organic agriculture. The Senators questioned the cost-efficiency of the hybrid rice program at the height of the investigation of the agriculture fund scam during the deliberation of the 2007 agriculture budget. Former Senate President Franklin Drilon advised the agriculture department that 2007 should be the last year of subsidy for hybrid rice.
The civil society group urges the Senate to remove this subsidy and instead allocate P158 million for the promotion of organic farming to cash-strapped farmers who can not afford high cost of input in chemical farming.
Wearing Santa hats, the group sings their demands to the tune of Filipino Christmas songs demanding more funds for education, health, environment and agriculture while appealing for transparency on the deliberation of the General Appropriations Act of 2008.
ABI, composed of forty eight civil society groups led by Social Watch, urges the bicameral committee to tap P80 billion worth of funds as alternative sources of financing. It includes P21 billion worth of debt-related funds identified by the Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC) from:
· P12. 5 billion savings out of a more realistic exchange rate of P 42 to a dollar, instead of Malacanang's bloated P 48 to a dollar forecast.
· P 5.1 billion from "payments" of proposed loans for programs, projects and bonds which are not covered by Section 26 (b) book 6 of the Revised Administrative Code of 1987 which provides for the automatic appropriations on debt servicing.
· P 4 billion worth of suspended payments to illegitimate debts which are challenged to be fraudulent, wasteful and useless.
Prof. Leonor Magtolis Briones, Co-convenor of Social Watch asks Congress to use another P 60 billion worth of funds designated for the repair and purchase of helicopters and other air transportation requirement under the Office of the President and other budget items found to be vulnerable to presidential discretion and difficult to exact accountability and transparency.
"The bicameral committee also known as the "third House" should craft the budget with the interest of the people on top of their concern. The public will not have the opportunity to take part in the process but the results of their deliberation will affect the lives of millions of Filipinos," said
Briones said the meeting will be exclusive to the legislators and the outcome of the meeting should be reported to the people.
The bicameral committee starts its deliberation today to reconcile the versions of the House and Senate of the General Appropriations Act.
"Measures to reduce poverty may be dangerously sacrificed to achieve the government's projection of achieving a balanced budget. We have seen in 2007 that a balanced budget can be attained not by improved tax revenue collection but by aggressive privatization of our country's assets and under spending on social expenditures, " said Briones.
Around P7.6 B of the House of Representatives' General Appropriations Bill (GAB) can be traced to the P20B ABI budget proposal for health, education, environment and agriculture.
"The amount is still very low and the Senate's move to disregard the House version of the appropriations bill and revert back to the original proposal of the Executive was more unfortunate, " said Briones.
Social Watch earlier criticized the Senate's P4B cut in the House-approved appropriation for health and the Senate's allocation of P5 million for seedling banks to "reforest" the highways while disregarding the environment groups' proposal to provide funding for community-based forestry program.
The group also proposed to scrap the subsidy allocation for hybrid rice amounting to P450 million and use this fund to support organic agriculture. The Senators questioned the cost-efficiency of the hybrid rice program at the height of the investigation of the agriculture fund scam during the deliberation of the 2007 agriculture budget. Former Senate President Franklin Drilon advised the agriculture department that 2007 should be the last year of subsidy for hybrid rice.
The civil society group urges the Senate to remove this subsidy and instead allocate P158 million for the promotion of organic farming to cash-strapped farmers who can not afford high cost of input in chemical farming.
No comments:
Post a Comment