DBM sets P241-billion budget deficit for 2013

BUDGET Secretary Florencio Abad said on Wednesday that they are going to trim the government’s budget deficit to 2 percent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) in 2013, lower than 2.6 percent ceiling for 2012.

Abad said that he will present next year’s proposed General Appropriations Act to President Benigno Aquino 3rd on Friday. In a meeting of the Development and Budget Coordinating Committee, Abad said that next year’s proposed national budget assumes a fiscal gap of P241 billion, down from this year’s ceiling of P279 billion.

The 2013 spending bill of P2.006 trillion is 10.6 percent higher than this year’s P1.816 trillion, with the increase allotted to bridging the classroom-teacher gap in public schools.

Abad also revealed that the government plans to hire an additional 61,000 teachers as well as build 27,000 classrooms to close the classroom and teacher gap by 2016.

“We are ready to present to the President or Cabinet on Friday. Until we get the President’s approval, we cannot get into details. All I can say now is that social, economic services, infrastructure and agriculture would remain our priority,” he said.

Abad added that the Aquino administration is committed to stay within its fiscal deficit ceiling for the year despite incurring a budget shortfall of only P22.786 billion at end-May, or only a fifth of its deficit ceiling for the first half of the year.

“We still have a lot of projects to spend on for the next succeeding months. We are expecting that spending would further shoot up in the second semester,” he said. –RAFFY AYENG, Manila Times