Camarines Sur 2nd district Rep. LRay Villafuerte (Facebook)

A pro-poor, pro-growth national budget. 

That's how Camarines Sur 2nd district Rep. LRay Villafuerte described the P5.768-trillion national budget for 2024, which President Marcos signed in Malacañang on Wednesday afternoon, Dec. 20. 

“With this pro-poor, pro-growth national budget plan for next year, the President will get closer to his vision of a prosperous and peaceful Philippines where nobody is left behind,” Villafuerte, a former House deputy speaker for finance, said. 

The Bicolano was referring to the 2024 General Appropriations Act (GAA), as embodied in the newly-signed Republic Act (RA) No.11975. 

He said the P5.768-trillion spending plan--the largest in the country’s history--will let President Marcos invest a fairly good deal in social protection, infrastructure, education and healthcare along with other priority programs meant to improve Filipino lives and energize growth across the country.

He said the 2024 GAA will bankroll the various social protection programs for poor and other underprivileged Filipinos as well as invest in infrastructure modernization, education and healthcare, and agriculture and food security leading toward high and inclusive growth. 

Going into specifics, Villafuerte said next year’s budget has doubled the funding for the pension program for elderly Filipinos to P49.8 billion. This will enable the government to increase the monthly pension of an estimated 4.1 million indigent seniors from P500 to P1,000. 

To help ordinary consumers who have been reeling from soaring rice prices, the National Unity Party (NUP) president said the 2024 GAA includes a rice voucher system called Bagong Pilipinas Community Assistance and Rice Discount (CARD) under the Assistance to Individuals in Crisis Situations (AICS) program of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD). 

Implemented in tandem with local government units (LGUs, the CARD program provides seven million poor families access to affordable quality rice.

He said the DSWD's AICS was given a higher allocation so the target beneficiaries can get CARD vouchers to buy rice at a discount. 

On top of the subsidies for poor families under the DSWD's Pantawid Pamilya Pilipino Program (4Ps), Villafuerte said that next year's outlay includes new financial aid for those whom Speaker Martin Romualdez had called the "near poor," under the department's Ayuda sa Kapos sa Kita Program (AKAP). 

It intends to provide P5,000 to every target-beneficiary earning P23,000 or less per month. 

AKAP aims to extend this subsidy to beneficiaries that include factory workers, drivers, construction workers and other persons with blue-collar jobs.