2011 budget signed Dec. 27 - Belmonte

By Jess Diaz (The Philippine Star) Updated December 22, 2010

MANILA, Philippines - President Aquino is set to sign the Congress-approved P1.645-trillion 2011 national budget next Monday.

Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. told reporters yesterday that Budget Secretary Florencio Abad has informed him of the Dec. 27 signing, which will be held in Malacañang, though he proposed that it be done two days earlier, on Christmas Day.

He said the expeditious approval by Congress of Aquino’s first budget reflects “our vote of confidence” on the President’s leadership.

“We fully support the President’s determination to promote good governance but, at the same time, we call on the executive branch to spend the budget for the right purposes at the right time so it will have greater impact on the lives of our people,” he said.

He said lawmakers “will be watching very carefully how the budget will be spent.”

The P1.645-trillion budget for next year is President Aquino’s first spending proposal. It was one of the earliest to be approved by senators and congressmen.

During most of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s nine-year presidency, the government either ran on a reenacted budget or congressional approval of Malacañang’s spending proposal was late.

Aquino and leaders of Congress have vowed early passage of the President’s spending proposal so they wouldn’t have to resort to reenacting this year’s budget at the start of 2011.

“This is the earliest budget approval. And I congratulate the executive department and all my colleagues in the House and the Senate as well for the early passage of the annual budget. You know, this is also my first time to sign a proposed GAA (general appropriations act),” Belmonte said.

He said unlike the budgets for this and previous years, the 2011 outlay is devoid of “congressional insertions,” funds in the billions that both senators and congressmen routinely inserted in the annual spending programs as part of their pork barrel.

“There are no insertions. Nothing like the P65-billion insertions in the 2010 budget, nothing like that here,” he said.

He was referring to the P65 billion in debt payments that the previous Congress has diverted to its pork barrel. Of that amount, Arroyo had released P16.5 billion mostly to her congressmen-allies before the synchronized elections last May 10.

After the elections, Arroyo released more than P200 million to the second district of Camarines Sur, which her son Diosdado or Dato represents in the House, and more than P300 million in river dredging funds to the lone district of Antique.

According to Abad, the releases have further bloated this year’s budget deficit, which is projected to hit a record P325 billion.

The diversion of debt payments to the congressional pork barrel has prompted Aquino to no longer include debt funds in the annual budget so lawmakers could not touch them.

Under a Marcos-era decree, Malacañang is authorized to automatically appropriate debt payments.