Aquino allots P568B for poverty reduction

TO reduce poverty incidence to 16.6 percent and to meet key Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015, President Benigno Aquino 3rd provided the biggest funding support to poverty reduction and other social services under the 2012 national budget.

Budget Secretary Florencio Abad said that P568.6 billion, or about 32 percent of the P1.816-trillion budget was allocated to the social services sector, the biggest share among all other sectors funded by the national expenditure plan.

“This administration is investing in programs, activities and projects that have direct, immediate and substantial impact in empowering the poor. Our focus is to provide life vests to those drowning in poverty through targeted social protection packages, and to significantly invest in their education and healthcare,” he said.

Abad said that the budget of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) increased to P48.9 billion in 2012 from P34.3 billion last year, a growth rate of 42.57 percent, to allow the expansion of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) to cover three million indigent households from the 2.3 million in 2011.

With its budget, the DSWD will also implement other social protection packages such as social pension of P500 each for more than 198,000 senior citizens (P1.2 billion) and supplemental feeding for 1.6 million children in daycare centers (P2.9 billion).

The budget for the Department of Education increased by 15.2 percent to P238.8 billion in 2012 from P207.3 billion, the largest budgetary increase of the department in more than a decade.

The Basic Educational Facilities Fund will increase by 54.28 percent—P17.4 billion from P11.291 billion, while the School Building Program will again be provided with P1 billion, to construct more than 45,000 additional classrooms, 2.53 million seats, and more than 25,000 water and sanitation facilities.

Meanwhile, the budget of the Department of Health increased by 34 percent to P44.4 billion from P33.2 billion. A P12-billion budget was allotted for the National Health Insurance Program, much bigger than last year’s P3.5 billion, for the payment of premium subsidies for 5.2 million indigent households.

Furthermore, the budget for the Doctors to the Barrios Program increased 13 fold to P1.742 billion from P123 million, to deploy 200 doctors, 12,000 nurses and 1,021 midwives to regional health units, barangay health stations and hospitals nationwide.

Other projects are the upgrading of rural health units, barangay health stations and district hospitals (P5.1 billion), P1.87 billion to cover immunization of 2.6 million children (P1.87 billion), and public-private partnerships for the upgrading, rehabilitation and maintenance of 25 regional hospitals (P3 billion). –Jaime Pilapil reporter, Manila Times