Aquino reallocates P1.75-B to calamity funds

To augment the country's nearly depleted calamity funds, President Benigno Aquino III has approved the Department of Budget and Management's proposal to re-allocate P1.75 billion from unused funds to the calamity budget. The P1.75 billion will be taken from the P3.5 billion allotted for unfilled positions in various agencies, which was not used in the first half of the year, DBM Secretary Florencio "Butch" Abad said in a statement on Friday. The DBM had recommended that the president declare the amount as savings, which he then swiftly approved, Abad said. Under Section 60 of Republic Act 9970 or the General Appropriations Act of 2010, the President and the heads of other constitutional bodies such as the Senate, the Lower House, the Ombudsman, and constitutional commissions enjoying fiscal autonomy are “authorized to augment any item in this Act from savings in other items of the their respective appropriations." More sources of funding will have to be sought, Abad said, as the country is set to experience more typhoons in the coming months. The Arroyo administration released in the first semester of 2010 a total of 70 percent, or some P1.4 billion out of the P2 billion originally allocated for calamity funds, leaving only some P592 million for the Aquino government to work with for the rest of the year. “Nakapagtataka lang kung bakit halos naubos na ng dating administrasyon ang pondo para sa mga kalamidad sa mga unang buwan ng 2010, ganung batay sa karanasan nila sa mga nakaraang taon, ang panahon ng pagpasok ng tag-ulan at mga bagyo ay nasa bandang gitna hanggang sa mga huling buwan ng taon," said Abad. (We’re just wondering why the previous administration nearly used up all the calamity funds for the first months of 2010, when based on their experiences in the past years, the rainy season and typhoons come in the middle until the last months of the year.) Aquino had said in his first State of the Nation Address that P105 million in calamity funds was allocated for the rehabilitation of Pampanga's second district — which Mrs. Arroyo now represents in Congress — when other provinces such as Rizal and Pangasinan suffered far worse when cyclones Ondoy and Pepeng hit the country last year. While P105 million was allocated to the second district, the three other districts of Pampanga shared the remaining P3 million for the province, Abad also said earlier. Mrs. Arroyo's spokesperson Elena Bautista-Horn had denied that Mrs. Arroyo used the funds for her congressional campaign. "May P105 million na na-allot, totoo naman yan ... Pero di pa nadi-disburse ang pera, the money is intact. Huwag nila sabihing ginamit sa election (That P105 million was allotted, that’s true… But the money has not yet been disbursed, it is intact. So they shouldn’t say it was used for the election)," Bautista-Horn said.—JV, GMANews.TV