BTr says GOCC subsidies up 54% to P15.95 billion

(Updated 6.02 p.m.) Government-owned and –controlled corporations (GOCCs) got P15.95 billion in subsidies in the 10 months to October, up by 54 percent from P10.36 billion a year earlier, the Bureau of Treasury (BTr) reported Wednesday. Almost half of the money or P7.7 billion went to the cash-strapped National Food Authority (NFA), records released by the BTr showed. Other major recipients of financial assistance from the national government were the National Housing Authority with P3.44 billion, followed by National Livelihood Development Corp. (P1.1 billion), National Telecommunications Commission or NTC (P1.02 billion), Tourism Promotions Board or TPB (P421 million), and Philippine Rice Research Institute or PRRI (P313 million). The release of NFA’s full-year subsidy of nearly P8 billion pushed the programmed subsidy over the P13.3 billion allotted for the first 10 months, Budget Secretary Florencio Abad said. “Spending for subsidies for GOCCs was higher than program by P2.7 billion or 20 percent, given the full release of the P8-billion subsidy for the price stabilization and food security program of NFA," the budget chief stressed. NFA subsidy allows the grains agency to meet its mandate of selling rice at affordable rates even below the buying price of the commodity. It has accumulated P171 billion in debts as of May 2010 from P28 billion in 2003, prompting legislators to urge the President Aquino to re-allot NFA’s subsidies for the poor via the Department of Social Welfare and Development’ conditional cash transfer program. In October alone, subsidies extended to GOCCs surged 292 percent to P6.28 billion from P1.6 billion in the same month last year, with the money channeled to NFA amounting to P5.6 billion. The TPB also got P405 million in October and the Rice Research Institute got P139 million. Abad said last month’s subsidies extended to GOCCs exceeded by P4.98 billion the P1.3 billion programmed for the month. In 2009, GOCCs received a total of P17.44 billion in subsidies or 17. 4 percent lower from 21.11 billion in 2008. — VS, GMANews.TV