More transparent budget to help poor Filipinos against crisis

MANILA, Philippines - Making the Philippine national budget more transparent—among other reform measures—will help “protect millions of poor Filipinos from the global economic crisis," a non-government organization (NGO) said. Increasing allotments for social services—including education, agriculture, health, and environment—will save millions of Filipinos from hunger, said Social Watch Philippines. The group leads 60 NGOs in its advocacy called the Alternative Budget Initiative. Recognized as one of the world’s best practices covering budget advocacy, the ABI allows civil society groups and partner legislators to craft alternative budget proposals for higher allocations for health, education, environment and agriculture. Currently, an estimated 4.3 million households have “experienced involuntary hunger at least once in the past three months," the group said, citing a survey by the Social Weather Station (SWS). To curb hunger, the government should “implement budget reforms," the group said in a statement. “The Philippine budget system breeds corruption. Many budget items have no special provisions and are subject to the manipulation of only one person. These include the Special Purpose Funds which account for more than half of the national budget, the Unprogrammed Funds (SPF), reenacted budget, the indiscriminate use of savings and the non-release of funds for social development," said Leonor Magtolis Briones, SWP lead convenor and former national treasurer. Briones called on the Bicameral Conference Committee to adopt the people's alternative budget proposals which realign vague and unreasonably big budget items to allocations for social services. The former national treasurer also emphasized the need to reformulate the macroeconomic assumptions on the budget which are unattainable. “The government should immediately implement budget reforms, especially with the looming economic crisis and the danger of our national budget becoming an election stimulus with the coming national elections," Briones warned. For his part, SWP co-convenor Rene Raya of Action for Economic Reforms (AER) added that people are kept in the dark regarding the national budget. “Every year we hold a mobilization to demand that transactions of the bicameral conference committee in finalizing the national budget should be made public. The Department of Budget and Management is also very reluctant in providing information on the budget to the common people," Raya said. - GMANews.TV