Aquino signs P1.6-trillion nat’l budget, vetoes 13 provisions

MANILA, Philippines—President Aquino on Monday signed a massive P1.6-trillion national budget for 2011 designed to fight poverty and spur development, but vetoed 13 provisions that would limit his power of spending.

Mr. Aquino profusely thanked Congress for its full support and swift approval of the first national budget crafted by his 6-month-old administration.

“This will be the first time in 11 years that the budget will be signed into law in the same year that it was submitted,” Mr. Aquino said after signing the General Appropriations Act of 2011 in the presence of lawmakers, led by Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile and Speaker Jose Belmonte, and Cabinet officials.

“This will enable us to address the urgent needs of our people in a timely manner,” Mr. Aquino said. “Such needs include building more rural health units and providing immunization for children. This also allows us to construct new classrooms and hire new teachers, as promised to the Filipino people.”

In his veto message, Mr. Aquino said his first budget not only “enshrines transparency and accountability” but also “establishes a spending program that is unabashedly biased for the poor.”

The 2011 budget is 6.8 percent higher than last year’s. It focuses on social programs and includes a controversial provision for P21 billion in cash handouts to selected poor families.

“This budget demonstrates our commitment to solving the problems of our people at the soonest time. This alleviates the burdens especially of the most disadvantaged,” Mr. Aquino said at the signing ceremony.

Bias for social service

The budget was passed by Congress almost unchanged from Mr. Aquino’s original proposal and came in ahead of schedule in a sign of increased cooperation between the new President and the legislature.

Budget Secretary Florencio Abad said the 2011 budget had a “clear bias” for social services, pointing out that 34 percent of budget was focused on social service.

The three departments with the highest budget allocation in the budget were education, national defense and public works and highways

Mr. Aquino said he exercised “direct veto” on 13 items as recommended by the Department of Budget and Management.

“There are several items among them, what we consider riders. Riders are prohibited by the Constitution so we exercised the veto on that,” Mr. Aquino told reporters.

Other items in the budget “limited the powers of the Executive,” which the President said he vetoed.

Money for the poor

Abad said Mr. Aquino did not veto any appropriation but only items that had to do with general and special provisions of the budget tending to intrude on the executive’s prerogative to implement it.

“Twenty-six items in the budget were subject to what is called a conditional implementation, which is really a clarification of how they should be implemented,” Abad said.

Mr. Aquino cited 13 general and special provisions and special provisos that he vetoed “for contravening the provisions of the Constitution and those of applicable laws, rules and regulations.”

He thanked the legislators for approving his policy of conditional cash transfers, where money is given to certain poor families. Critics have said the policy will only foster dependency in a country where 33 percent of the 94 million population live in poverty.

Senator Ralph Recto said Mr. Aquino was ill-advised in vetoing key provisions that Recto said would have given the President tighter control on how state funds were spent, specifically the P21-billion conditional cash transfer program of the Department of Social Welfare and Development.

Mr. Aquino junked a provision allowing the creation of a congressional committee which would give Congress the power to oversee public spending, specifically by the DSWD.

“These (congressional) oversight committees will ensure that the government spending programs will be successful because it sends a signal to the various departments that they are being closely monitored with the President’s consent,” Recto said in a phone interview.

Senator Francis Pangilinan said the 2011 budget gave the country a fresh start after the budgetary manipulations under the Arroyo administration “characterized by the twisting and the bending of our laws for the sake of political survival.”

“This is a signal that this administration intends to govern within the confines of the Constitution. No shortcuts,” Pangilinan said.

Power to impound

Cavite Representative Joseph Emilio Abaya said Mr. Aquino could exercise the same power wielded by former President and now Pampanga Representative Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to impound “unnecessary items” in the 2011 budget.

Mr. Aquino can even impound portions of Arroyo’s P2.2-billion infrastructure fund, which has been kept intact in the new budget, said Abaya, chair of the House committee on appropriations.

The militant League of Filipino Students branded the budget “antistudent, antipeople,” claiming it restored severe cuts in subsidies for public tertiary education. –Christine O. Avendaño, Philippine Daily Inquirer With reports from Gil C. Cabacungan Jr., TJ Burgonio, Tarra Quismundo, Inquirer Research and AFP