Aquino signs P1.645-T reform budget
December 27, 2010, 2:56pm
MANILA, Philippines (PNA) - President Benigno S. Aquino III signed into law at Malacanang's Rizal Hall on Monday the P1.645-trillion General Appropriations Act (GAA) for 2011, the first financial blueprint of the Aquino administration.
Present during the occasion were Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, Senate Minority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano, Senator Franklin Drilon, House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. and several other members of Congress.
“The Reform Budget of 2011 has now been enacted. In the run-up to this momentous occasion, we have achieved key ‘firsts’ in public expenditure management,” Department of Budget and Management Secretary Florencio B. Abad said.
Among these, he said, is that it will be the first time in 11 years that the GAA is enacted before the fiscal year starts.
“We are now shunning the old, inefficient and crooked practice of re-enactment by ensuring that our budget is passed on time and implemented early,” Abad said.
The budget chief also said it was the first time this year that the national budget was prepared using the zero-based budgeting (ZBB) approach.
“This allowed us to reduce or terminate funding for projects or programs which are ineffective, inefficient or fraught with leakages, and to expand funding for those which are well-performing and are critical for development,” he explained.
Furthermore, he stressed that the 2011 Reform Budget is the first budget with transparency and accountability provisions integrated within the GAA text.
“These general and special provisions require us to disclose key information on budgetary appropriations and releases using new information technology. This government has nothing to hide from the people,” Abad said.
He also said that it was also the first time that ways and means to institutionalize citizen participation in the budget process have begun to be discussed with civil society organizations (CSOs).
“In fact, CSOs will already participate in preparing the 2012 budget,” he added.
“Pinakamahalaga sa lahat, inuuna ng Reform Budget of 2011 ang maralita nating mga kababayan (Most importantly, the Reform Budget of 2011 puts our poor countrymen first). This budget puts into pesos the Aquino government’s unabashed bias for the poor,” Abad stressed.
The DBM chief said the 2011 budget significantly invests in poverty reduction, with the social services sector receiving the lion’s share of 34.1 percent of the budget, a 16.8 percent increase, which is the highest gain among sectors.
“This is a concrete, direct and substantial way of making the dividends of good governance benefit the poor,” he said.
He noted that allocations for conditional cash transfers, for quality basic education and for maternal and child healthcare have significantly increased in line with meeting the country’s Millennium Development Goals.
Reaction/Recommendation:
What is reform budget? Budget Reform refers to the changes which are made in the budget plans, for getting more effective results in terms of cutting down the overall expenses and facilitating more income. Without any Budget Reform, a budget plan tends to become stereotype and stagnant, and no longer remains beneficial in meeting the financial requirements of the country. ( http://www.economywatch.com/budget/important-concepts/reform.html )
But in this case, he performs it in a biased way in which as we can see, students in public schools tend to form a rally so that the government can hear their cries regarding such issue. The government also uses the foreign debt which is the. The money one country owes to another country, as a result of loans and/or a negative balance of trade ( http://www.investorwords.com/2041/Foreign_Debt.html ). This foreign debt is being paid to other country in which we pay them for our loans, etc. They have not been using the required amount of money which must be invested towards education so that more funds will be acquired in the public schools. But, if they continue to pay those foreign debt then some students might transfer to private schools in which they can't afford and the necessary thing that they can do is to STOP because they can't afford the necessary needs in the private schools.
I recommend that they must that pay the foreign debt to other countries. They must find ways to do other courses of actions in paying their debts in which it is intended to the public schools. By this, students can afford to go to public schools and more scholarships shall be given by them. More students can graduate whether they came in public schools, at least they to achieve their goals in life.
By: Althea Bonnafe C. Ferraris
BSC - MA 3D
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