House Deputy Speaker Ralph Recto on Saturday, Aug. 27, raised a red flag on Malacañang’s allotment of P588 billion for “unprogrammed appropriations” in the 2023 national budget.
Recto, a representative of Batangas's 6th district, revealed the half-a-trillion peso allocation was not officially included in the proposed P5.268-trillion budget for next year.
He said the proposed national budget may actually be P5.856 trillion, or P588 billion bigger than the oft-quoted P5.268 trillion.
“It is more than double the current year’s P251.7 billion unprogrammed fund(s),” he said in a statement sent to media.
Noting the lack of details in such funds, Recto described the amounts as “shades of grey”, stressing these must be itemized and rendered “in black and white".
The congressman made the revelation a day after the House of Representatives, particularly its Committee on Appropriations, officially began the deliberations on the 2023 National Expenditure Program (NEP).
The lower chamber aims to pass the proposed national budget on third and final reading by the end of September.
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According to Recto, the bulk of the “unclear and undefined” appropriations amounting to P380.6 billion was earmarked for “Support to Foreign Assisted Projects” while another P149.7 billion was set aside for “Support for Infrastructure Projects and Social Programs".
“Ang laki ng funding footprint, pero puro one-liner lang ang appropriations language (The funding footprint is huge, but the appropriations language are full of one-liners). It is a blank check request,” he said.
Recto pointed out the unprogrammed funds were one of the biggest “lump sums” in the NEP that the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) had prepared and transmitted to Congress.
“While it is part of the NEP, the unprogrammed fund is not included in the total amount. The result is, every popular budget literature nowadays quotes a smaller budget level,” Recto said.
He explained that while the unprogrammed appropriations can only be released if several “funding triggers” are met, the authority to spend it comes with the passage of the national budget.
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“Thus P5.856 trillion is the ceiling of the proposed 2023 budget,” Recto said, adding that “once the latter becomes law, it confers standby authority to the executive to spend it, provided conditions are met".
While he questioned some allocations for various projects, Recto also cited the “good and beneficial” recipients in the 10-item unprogrammed appropriations that he supports.
“Yung (The) P18.9 billion in public health emergency benefits for frontliners, maganda ‘yan (That’s good). Yung katiting na (The small) P14.6 million in LGU arrears, OK rin (also),” Recto said.
He also mentioned the P5 billion in the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) modernization and the P2 billion in arrears to the information technology (IT) provider of the Land Transportation Office (LTO), but he said these must be “itemized and scrutinized in the interest of transparency.”