Aquino tackled moral not legal issues in SONA

After critics and defenders of the new opposition scored President Benigno Aquino III for focusing on the excesses of the Arroyo administration in his first State of the Nation Address, Malacañang officials Wednesday said the President tackled moral not legal issues. The officials maintained that the Arroyo administration had been "irresponsible" in the way it spent the country's funds. In the first six months of the year, former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's administration disbursed P949.2 billion or 61.63 percent of the P1.54-trillion national budget, leaving P591.4 billion. "[With] legality, there is nothing wrong because it is within the authorization of Congress. But in terms of fiscal situation, at that time, it could have been more prudent if the releases were calibrated against revenue inflows so the target deficit for that period will not be exceed by P51 billion," Undersecretary Mario Relampagos of the Department of Budget and Management said in a press briefing in Malacañang. The Arroyo administration could have made better fiscal decisions in its last year, considering that Arroyo's term spanned nine years, Relampagos said. Deficit targets were also breached in previous years, the budget official said. "So again, better decisions should have been made, better collections should have also been made to support the priorities laid out in the budget that was approved by Congress." In the briefing, presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda said it was "fiscally irresponsible" of the Arroyo administration to spend so much in the first half of 2010 which covered the election season. It was not "ethical" for the Arroyo administration to allot P105 million in calamity funds to Pampanga's Second District — the district Arroyo now represents in Congress — when other areas like Rizal and Pangasinan suffered far worse last year from Storm Ondoy and Typhoon Pepeng. Figures 'not misleading' Lacierda also took an apparent dig at the counter-SONA delivered Tuesday by an Arroyo ally, House minority leader and Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman, who said that Aquino unfairly played up the Arroyo administration's spending considering that the deficit remains "manageable." "You cannot say they were responsible. Even if it was manageable, it was irresponsible for them to do that," Lacierda said. "If you are fiscally prudent in managing the economy, we would have a lesser budget deficit." Lagman used outdated data or figures as of May 31 in his counter-SONA, while President Aquino's figures were as of June 30, Relampagos said. In his 36-minute SONA Monday, Aquino laid out the supposed excesses of the Arroyo administration that resulted in the depletion of many of the country's funds. Aquino said he could only freely use P100 billion of the remaining budget. On that note, Lacierda said Malacañang was not trying to mislead the public. "There was no statement there to mislead the people. That's the only amount that he had wiggle-room for." Budget Secretary Florencio "Butch" Abad said Tuesday that the P100 billion was the amount that Aquino could re-appropriate for priority programs like education and health care as the rest of the budget consisted of automatic appropriations and personal services. —JE/VS, GMANews.TV