Two bills seeking financial support for persons with disability (PWDs) have been filed in the Senate.
Senate Bill 31, the proposed Monthly Social Pension for Indigent Persons with Disability Act, seeks to provide a ₱2,000 monthly social pension benefit to indigent PWDs. On the other hand, Senate Bill 501 seeks to establish a “disability support fund” that shall include monetary support for PWDs based on their personal needs, such as rehabilitation, habilitation, assistive devices and technology, and support services.
This is a welcome development for PWDs who deserve all-out government support.
There is no doubt about the noble objectives of both bills.
But unless funds are appropriated to implement them, these two bills with spending measures may likely join the growing list of unfunded mandates. This possibility surfaced at the recent public hearing of the Senate Committee on Social Justice, Welfare and Development chaired by Senator Imee Marcos.
During that hearing, Marcos said there is no money from the Department of Budget and Management (DBM), Department of Finance (DOF) and the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) to finance the two bills.
This is where the problem lies. No matter how noble the objectives are, measures like these will be worthless without funding as there is no way to implement them. Therefore, no one benefits from them.
Apart from the two Senate bills, another measure – Republic Act 11916 (An Act Increasing the Social Pension of Indigent Senior Citizens), which lapsed into law on July 30, 2022 – is in danger of joining the list of unfunded mandates unless funds are appropriated in the proposed 2023 budget.
“If the bill doubling the monthly ₱500 pension to ₱1,000 has lapsed into law, then it would mean that the budgetary requirement will also double to ₱50 billion,” Senior Deputy Speaker Ralph Recto said last month, noting that ₱25 billion is currently spent for the Social Pension for Indigent Seniors Program that covers 4,079,669 seniors. You double that and the government needs ₱25 billion more.
To underscore the extent of the issue, a study released by the Congressional Policy and Budget Research Department (CPBRD) of House of Representatives in 2016 showed that about 83 laws remain unimplemented or partially enforced at that time. The report even indicated that two laws enacted by the First Philippine Republic – the Friars Lands Act (1904) and Cadastral Survey Act (1913) – were not implemented because they required huge funding of ₱1.5 billion.
As of Oct. 15, 2015, 62 laws remain partially funded while 75 laws were not funded at all.
Compared to an earlier report by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) in 2007, unfunded laws grew by 127.3 percent, from 33 in 2007 to 75 in 2015.Partially funded laws grew even higher by 376.9 percent, from 13 to 62 in the same period, according to the CPBRD report.
In 2015 Sen. Francis Escudero hit the headlines when he revealed that some ₱500 billion worth of laws remain unfunded.
By now, remedies might have been instituted to address some of the unfunded laws.
The point is, the case of unfunded mandates has existed for a long while and the problem is bound to continue unless lawmakers keep in mind their fiscal responsibilities when crafting bills.
Some lawmakers – driven by the desire to come up with measures to address the needs of their constituencies, and to some extent keep their loyalty and support – lose sight of their fiscal responsibilities. By staying focused on parochial concerns, allocating or identifying sources of fund for their pet measures becomes secondary or is even totally ignored.
No doubt, the list of unfunded laws continues to grow.
Without appropriating funds to implement the bills they painstakingly crafted, lawmakers are only giving false hopes, if not empty promises.