PNoy to submit 2012 budget a day after SONA – Abad

President Benigno Aquino III is scheduled to submit to Congress this Tuesday government’s P1.816 trillion national budget for 2012, the first time after more than a decade that the budget would be submitted a day after delivering the State of the Nation Address (SONA). With the early submission of the budget, Congress may be able to approve the proposal before Christmas, said Budget Secretary Florencio Abad said. “Since the House leadership has agreed to begin its budget deliberations on August 1, there is a great chance that the 2012 General Appropriations Act will be approved before Christmas," Abad said. The proposed budget for 2012 is P171 billion or 10.4 percent more than the P1.645 trillion for 2011, and accounts for 16.5 percent of the projected gross domestic product (GDP). It is based on a growth assumption of 5.5 percent, although the administration continues to vie for a 7 percent to 8 percent growth. Abad said the 2012 budget underscores anti-corruption and good governance, poverty reduction and the empowerment of the poor, inclusive economic growth, just and lasting peace and the rule of law and integrity of the environment. “We have scaled-up funding for programs and projects that lead to direct, immediate and substantial benefits to the poor. At the same time, we scaled-down funding for activities which have been ineffective and prone to corruption," he said. The last time the budget proposal was submitted a day after the SONA was on July 27, 1999, after then President Joseph Estrada's second SONA on July 26 that year. Meanwhile, the 2001 budget was submitted to Congress on July 24, 2000, the same day that Estrada delivered his last SONA. However, the 2001 budget was not passed and the previous year’s budget was reenacted. During the Arroyo administration, the proposed budgets barely made it to the deadline stipulated in the Constitution, said Abad. The earliest the budget proposal was submitted to Congress was on Aug. 6, 2003. That was the 2004 national budget, the budget chief said. Government wants the deficit to narrow P286 billion or 2.6 percent of GDP, lower than this year’s target of P300 billion or 3 percent of GDP, in line with the goal to significantly reduce the budget deficit to 2 percent of GDP by 2013. — VS, GMA News