Senate Minority Leader Franklin M. Drilon on Monday, Nov. 15 expressed concern over the reduction made by Malacañang and the House of Representatives in the proposed 2022 budget of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) and its attached agencies.
In his interpellation during the hybrid marathon session today, Drilon asked why the DOST budget was reduced by P1.12 billion from P24.916 billion in 2021 to P23.793 billion for next year.
He said the reductions were from agencies involved in research and development.
“This is a little bit worrisome. I would like to suggest to the good vice chairman of the finance committee (Senator Joel Villanueva) to give this a good review and if merited, we should restore it (budget). We appeal to our colleagues to take a good look at the budget of this whole agency,” Drilon said.
Drilon pointed out that the National Task Force to End Local Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) has a budget of P28 billion which is higher than what was allotted to DOST.
There is still no definite Senate decision whether or not the reduction of NTF-ELCAC budget to P4 billion will not be changed as the Senate budget debate on the proposed 2022 P5 trillion national budget ends Friday.
In a related development, Senator Imee Marcos, chairwoman of the Senate economic affairs committee, also cited the reduction made in the proposed budgets of the Food and Nutrition Research Institute (FNRI) and the Philippine Science High School (PSHS).
During the hybrid marathon session deliberating the proposed budget of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) Monday, November 15, 2021, Marcos noted the P87 million cut in the PSHS budget and the P321 million cut in the budget of the FNRI at a time when the country has problems with the supply chain and logistics and the threats to national food security.
”We recommend that we take a look once again at the projects that will be severely impacted in the food and nutrition research so direly needed in this time. There is also a significant budget cut for the Philippine Science High School, which as we know, is the home of the best and the brightest Filipino students. I am deeply concerned by the threat it poses against the scholarship of our brilliant but impoverished PSHS students,” Marcos said.
Sen. Joel Villanueva, who is defending the DOST budget, agreed to look into these budget cuts, which he said are intended for infrastructure projects of the agencies.