Incoming Aquino admin asked to release withheld funds for poverty reduction

The incoming Aquino administration was asked to release withheld funds to bankroll projects intended to cut poverty and achieve universal education in the country, a United Nations agency in charge of development goals said. Presidential front runner Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III’s "stand against corruption as the main cause of nationwide poverty gives us hope that we can achieve Millennium Development Goals after all," a statement released by the UN Millennium Campaign said, referring to its eight-pronged development goal drafted ten years ago. The statement quoted former national treasurer Leonor Magtolis Briones, lead convener of Social Watch Philippines (SWP), a group of 100 civil society organizations seeking increased funding for projects that will help fulfill Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) through what it calls as the Alternative Budget Initiative (ABI). "If he can streamline the flow of existing funds into MDG-related projects while the Congress legislates more budget to support sustainability, we can definitely fast-track the MDGs," the statement quoting Briones said. For the years 2008 and 2009, the ABI uncovered billions of impounded funds before a House Committee on Appropriations’ special hearing, the statement said. These include funds for health and agriculture programs in the 2008 budget, such as:

• P1.8 billion for family health
• P400 million for the tuberculosis program
• P100 million for purchase of autoclaves
• P100 million for the promotion of organic agriculture
• P2 million for training small-farmers for system of rice intensification (SRI)
• P95 million for Protected Areas and Wildlife Management
• P1 billion for reforestation

“Billions of pesos of people’s money were either impounded or realigned and transferred to overall savings under Arroyo’s term. This has caused delay and non-implementation of critical socio-economic programs, which translated to millions of Filipinos plunging below the poverty line with no job, no education, no healthcare and no food on their tables," the statement said. In addition, there has to be a strong push for localization, making sure that the MDGs serve not just a few, but every Filipino," said Minar Pimple, UN Millennium Campaign Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific in the same statement. The Philippines only has five years left to achieve eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that the government committed to in the 2000 Millennium Declaration, the UN agency said. While there has been progress in some areas, the country remains off-track in more than 40 percent of the 21 indicators, the Asia-Pacific Regional Report for 2009-2010 cited. The MDGs are time-bound, concrete, and specific goals that 189 world leaders committed to achieving by 2015 at the United Nations Summit in September 2000. These goals include:

• 1) ending extreme poverty and hunger
• 2) achieving universal primary education;
• 3) promoting gender equality and empowering women
• 4) reducing child mortality
• 5) improve maternal health
• 6) combating HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
• 7) ensuring environmental sustainability and
• 8) developing a global partnership for development

In the past ten years since the Declaration, the Philippines had made considerable progress in some of the Goals, particularly Goals 4, 6, and 7. Infant and under-five mortality rates have been steadily decreasing since 1990, according to the National Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS). In 2008, infant mortality rate was 25 per 1,000 live births, very nearly closing the gap with the Goal 4 target of reducing infant deaths to 19 by 2015. The report also cited that the Philippines had consistently managed to bring the infant-mortality numbers down from 80 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1990 to 34 deaths in 2008. On Goal 6, Department of Health records showed a decline in malaria morbidity: from 24 cases per 100,000 population in 2008 to 21 in 2009. Malaria mortality rate has declined from 0.06 deaths per 100,000 population in 2008 to 0.02 in 2009. The country is an early achiever on the Goal 7 target of access to safe drinking water, with 87.9 percent, according to the Family Income and Expenditure Survey (FIES). It is close to reaching the 2015 target of 85.9 percent access to sanitary toilet facilities, with 81.5 percent in 2007. Despite these achievements, a faster pace of gains is urgently needed to meet some of the other Goals. United Nations data revealed that 33 percent of Filipinos still live on less than $1 a day while 5.2 million children of school age are out of school. In addition, 11 mothers die each day due to pregnancy-related causes, and the incidence of HIV among the youth has increased five-fold from 41 in 2007 to 218 in 2009. “It is thus crucial for the next administration to take decisive steps in implementing existing MDG-supportive policies and formulating policies where they are lacking, so the country can get closer to achieving the MDGs, Pimple said. On the other hand, Briones said “This year is particularly crucial because it is the 10th anniversary of the Millennium Declaration. World leaders, including Aquino, will gather in New York in September for the MDG Summit." They have to come up with MDG Breakthrough Plans that not only sustain policies and programs that have worked for the achievement of the MDGs, but they also have to address the roadblocks that have derailed achievements in some areas. - RJAB Jr./LBG, GMANews.TV