The opaque administration of Noynoy would not exactly reveal the entirety of the discretionary funds placed in the hands of the Palace until it is pieced together from other sources.
The 2012 budget showed something like P362 billion of items the spending for which is all under the discretion of Noynoy.
The 2012 budget showed something like P362 billion of items the spending for which is all under the discretion of Noynoy.
It turned out, based on the computation of former Sen. Ping Lacson of the total amount of disposable funds of Noynoy including the so-called off-budget items was roughly P700 billion or nearly double what was initially believed to be his pork barrel.
A look at the 2012 budget showed funds in the national expenditure program and the General Appropriations Act (GAA) as discretionary funds of Noynoy’s Special Purpose Funds consisted of allocations to local government units of P16.9 billion; the Priority Development Assistance Fund for legislators of P24.89 billion; Department of Education school building fund, P1 billion; electronic government fund, P1 billion; budgetary support to government-owned and -controlled corporations, P21.57 billion; miscellaneous personnel benefit fund, P109.29 billion, Payapa at Masaganang Pamayanan (peace fund), P1.76 billion; and unprogrammed fund and automatic appropriation of P226.22 billion.
Off budget items like funds coming from savings of a prior year’s budget, the Malampaya fund and the President’s Social Fund are the other rich sources of disposable funds for Noynoy.
The major off budget item from which Noynoy can always draw from are the Malampaya fund which is worth P136 billion, proceeds from the road users tax? of some P10 billion and the PAF raised from casino operations of the state gaming firm Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. and the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office lotto operations worth P 2.4 billion.
It seems P326 billion was not even enough for Noynoy and his cohorts in 2012 which was a year before the 2013 elections, that the Liberal Party (LP) admitted as a referendum for Noynoy.
Lacson said unused appropriations in the GAA in 2011 amounted to P238.8 billion consisting of unreleased appropriations of P79.6 billion and unobligated allotments of P159.2 billion.
All of these became savings in 2012 and became discretionary funds of Noynoy.
The administration of Noynoy in the pretence of cleaning up the government system of irregular deals slowed down and practically stopped spending in 2011 that resulted in a low three percent growth by the end of that year.
Another P216 billion in savings was realized in 2012 broken down into unreleased appropriations of P38.1 billion and unobligated allotments of P178 billion that became the disposable funds of Noynoy this year.
Lacson said Butch Abad, who juggles his hat as the Budget Secretary and a key leader in the LP, issued Budget Circular 541 last July 18, 2012 authorizing the DBM to pool all unobligated allotments of agencies with low levels of obligations as of June 30, 2012, both for continuing and current allotments.
With the bigger budget this year, it follows that the discretionary funds of Noynoy should have grown consequently.
Disposable funds in the budget alone for this year totaled P695 billion with the unprogrammed funds rising to P117.55 billion in the 2013 budget from P76.16 billion in 2012. In the proposed 2014 budget, unprogrammed funds are placed at an even bigger P140 billion.
The lump sum funds in the 2014 budget proposal were placed at P735 billion without the savings carry over from the 2013 budget.
The disposable funds of Noynoy appear to grow collaterally as the major election period of 2016 nears.
By 2015, half of the budget may be at the disposal of Noynoy and his cohorts in the LP.
The whole Philippine budget under the discretion of one man or one party?
It will surely come with the way Noynoy and the LP move to manipulate public funds.
Published in Editorial
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