UP professor fires back at ex-Budget chief

Former Budget Secretary and now University of the Philippines professor Benjamin Diokno has insulted the university by issuing “irresponsible” criticisms over alleged misallocation of budget by the Arroyo administration, a senior faculty member of the UP School of Economics said on Monday.
During a press briefing in Malacañang, professor Gonzalo Jurado, a former mentor of President Gloria Arroyo, said that Diokno insulted the country’s premier university by issuing “baseless” and “irresponsible” statements on the allocation of the national budget by the Arroyo administration.

“You know why this person [Diokno] will fail in my class. He, among all people, should know that there is a limit to science and budget is one of the issues that science has nothing to do [with]. It is an insult to the university. It is sad that he carries the name of the UP School of Economics,” Jurado added.

He pointed that Diokno, the Budget secretary during the Estrada administration, has no right to impose his personal views, saying that the allocation of a budget will depend entirely on the government.

“You know, science will not tell you what portion of our budget should be allocated to anything. Budget is defined by someone who puts it together and how to use it will depend purely on the preference of the person in charge of it, which is the government that is led by the President who holds the national mandate,” Jurado said.

Contrary to what critics are saying, according to him, President Arroyo deserves a grade of 1.5 for her achievements in infrastructure and social development.

Failing grade

Diokno has given the President a failing grade of 5.0 for the large deficits from 2001 to 2005 and ending her term with record-high deficits of at least P250 billion by yearend and another P200 billion-plus in 2010.

Malacañang deputy spokesman Gary Olivar also on Monday noted that Diokno and other critics of Mrs.

Arroyo have never presented alternative numbers or any serious evidence that will challenge the figures presented by her administration.

“All they did was to question the method and the integrity of the people who gathered the numbers. But there’s no solid proof coming from them,” Olivar said.

He added that he has been waiting for the critics to come up with something to bolster their claims.

“I’m issuing another request from this forum for them to please come up with solid evidence that the numbers were misleading or wrong,” Olivar said.

He added that there is no basis to doubt government’s data on the President’s accomplishments as indicators show such information is credible.

Olivar said that government data experts have decades of experience in gathering, processing and assessing information.

He and Jurado are co-editors of one of the two books on the administration and achievements of Mrs. Arroyo that will be launched today.

Legacy agenda

The books, Beat the Odds: Another Stone for the Edifice and Beating the Odds, detail accomplishments of the President’s BEAT THE ODDS legacy agenda.

Beat the Odds: Another Stone for the Edifice, which was published by the Philippine Information Agency (PIA), was edited by Olivar and Jurado.

Jurado said that the book gives concreteness to words already spoken on Mrs. Arroyo’s achievements and gave the “1” rating particularly on the President’s direct cash assistance program for the poor, including the unprecedented budgetary allocations for human and physical infrastructure “which can be seen all over the country.”

Olivar said that the book also contains technical notes and vigorous points of view from experts not connected with or influenced by the government.

Beating the Odds, co-authored by former PIA chief Renato Velasco and presidential spokesman Ricardo Saludo, recounts major issues and challenges that the President faced early in her administration.

“These are not just words put together. These books put the numbers down. As an economist, without numbers, I will consider myself, if I do talk, I’m just giving out a political speech. And this book is not just a political speech,” Jurado said. –James Konstantin Galvez, Reporter, Manila Times