Validations of the Alleged Achievements of P-Noy

It all started with P-Noy's favorite topic... WANG-WANG. For him, it symbolizes the abuse of authority by our government officials. They promise to do away with the use of it. He added that eradicating this mindset becomes the symbol of change, not just in our street, but even in our collective attitude.

               

For the last one year and a month of assuming his presidency the wang-wang system isn't out of the topic. Being with it, we can see that there was a minimization of this act. Although it was not that evident by this time, we must admit that somehow the mindset of entitlement has been reduced. According to Aquino's Administration, due to serious fighting of wang-wang their efforts have yielded positive results. 

               

To end the wang-wang culture in government, P-Noy's Administration employed zero-based budgeting to review programs. For this year and the last, zero-based budgeting has allowed them to end many wasteful programs.

               

For example, they uncovered and stopped an ill-advised plan to dredge Laguna Lake. They would have borrowed 18.7 billion pesos to remove 12 million cubic meters of silt—which would have re-accumulated within three years, even before the debt could be fully paid. We also uncovered a food-for-school program with no proper targeting of beneficiaries, and other initiatives that were funded without apparent results. All of these were discontinued, and the funds rechanneled to more effective programs.

               

Even though our government acts as a wang-wang buster, still this attitude exists in some private sector.  According to the BIR, they have around 1.7 million self-employed and professional taxpayers: lawyers, doctors, businessmen who paid a total of 9.8 billion pesos in 2010. This means that each of them paid only an average of 5,783 pesos in income tax—and if this is true, then they each must have earned only 8,500 pesos a month, which is below the minimum wage which is so hard to believe.

               

When it comes to figures according to P-Noy’s SONA, the Philippine economy has improved. Aquino cited as one of the gains of his government the decline in self-rated hunger from 15.1 percent in June from 20.5 percent in March. This is equivalent to one million families who no longer experience hunger, said Aquino. The figures are from the second quarter 2011 hunger survey of the Social Weather Stations (SWS). But if we take a look at the state of our country a lot of people are still poor and have no food to eat. 

Aquino said, "As for business, who would have thought that the stock market would reach seven record highs in the past year? At one time, we thought that for the PSE Index to reach 4,000 points would be, at best, a fluke. We now routinely exceed this threshold."

               

He also added about where taxes go, as he quote "Today we can see that our taxes are going where they should, and therefore there is no reason not to pay the proper taxes. I say to you: it’s not just the government, but our fellow citizens, who are cheated out of the benefits that these taxes would have provided."

Unemployment worsened in Aquino's first year of his administration. This was according to the latest survey of the Social Weather Stations, commissioned by the BusinessWorld daily.  But as far as Aquino is concerned, jobs are being created. In his SONA, he mentioned that the unemployment rate in April went down to 7.2 percent in April 2011 from 8 percent during the same period last year, crediting the efforts of his administration. Some 1.4 million jobs have been supposedly created in his first year. The numbers are from the Labor Force Survey (LFS) of the National Statistics Office (NSO).

The 1.4 million jobs supposedly created between April 2011 and April 2010 could not be attributed to government intervention. In the first place, the only job generation program that the Aquino administration has so far initiated is the Community Based Employment Program (CBEP). This program has only created 170,000 jobs out of a target of 1.1 million. About 63% of these jobs are in infrastructure/construction, of low quality, and highly temporary. The 170,000 could even be deceitful because a worker can avail of more than one CBEP job.

Looking at the NSO data, more than 456,000 jobs of the 1.4 million additional jobs are classified as those who worked for private households (domestic help, etc.), self-employed without any paid employee (vendor or sari-sari store owner, etc.), employer in own-family operated farm or business, and worked without pay in own-family operated farm or business. In other words, a significant part of the additional employment in the past year was due to the people’s sariling diskarte and not because of any meaningful job generation program of government.

                                    Figures in '000

Because of such distortions, the number of jobless according to the April 2011 LFS of the NSO is just 2.9 million workers. In contrast, adult unemployment rate as measured by the SWS in its own survey was pegged at 27.2% or 11.3 million workers in March 2011. Based on SWS data, the average adult unemployment rate under Aquino is 23.2%, a continuation of the deteriorating domestic jobs situation. Under Arroyo, it was just 19.77%; Estrada, 9.66%; and Fidel Ramos, 9.66%.

Aquino cited as one of the gains of his government the decline in self-rated hunger from 15.1 % in June from 20.5% in March. This is equivalent to one million families who no longer experience hunger, said Aquino. The figures are from the second quarter 2011 hunger survey of the Social Weather Stations (SWS).

But quarterly hunger surveys are sometimes volatile (e.g. self-rated hunger fell from 21.1% to 15.9% in Aquino’s first 100 days) so it is important to look at the long-term trend. In the first year of the Aquino administration, quarterly self-rated hunger averaged 17.4%. During the nine years of the Arroyo government, it averaged a lower 14.58% and just 9.96% under deposed President Joseph Estrada. These numbers indicate that the country is still on the path of worsening hunger.

Aquino also claimed that in his first year as President, the Philippines got upgraded four times by credit rating agencies. Compare this, said Aquino, to the lone credit upgrade and six downgrades the country had in the nine and a half years of the Arroyo administration. A high credit rating means lower interest payments. According to Aquino, the country spent P23 billion less in interest payments from January to April 2011 compared to the same period last year. This amount can supposedly already cover the 2.3 million families in target beneficiaries of the CCT program until the end of the year.

But the credit rating upgrades came at a high cost for the people. To obtain the upgrades, the Aquino administration ensured that debt obligations are being paid dutifully and at the same time resorted to massive under-spending. The result is that an ever increasing portion of spending by the national government went to debt servicing. Since Aquino became President, total debt servicing has already reached P668.65 billion (from July 2010 to May 2011). Until April this year, 49.3% of what the Aquino administration has spent went to debt servicing.

Compare these figures to those under Arroyo, who has been criticized as a heavy borrower and payer. Monthly debt servicing during the Arroyo administration was P48.18 billion while in the first 11 months of the Aquino presidency, it went up to P60.79 billion.  As a percentage of total government spending (including principal payments), the average during the Arroyo administration was 41.5% while under Aquino, it has increased to 49.3% (until April 2011).

Despite the bigger debt servicing, the total outstanding debt of government (including contingent debt) still rose from P5.19 trillion in June 2010 to P5.23 trillion as of April 2011. The P40-billion rise in government debt includes $400 million (about P18 billion) in loans from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) approved last September 2010 to help bankroll the expanded CCT program. This means that the P23 billion mentioned by Aquino as savings from lower interest payments will just be used to pay for the rising debt obligations of government, including those incurred for the CCT.

The credit rating upgrades were also achieved due to the improvement in the national budget deficit, another indicator closely watched to determine a country’s creditworthiness. From an all-time high (in absolute terms) of P314.5 billion in deficit in 2010, the Aquino administration has been able to substantially reduce the shortfall so far this year. From January to May 2011, the fiscal deficit was pegged at just P9.54 billion or 94.1% below the deficit during the same period in 2010. It is also way below the programmed deficit of P152.13 billion for the first half of the year. This lower deficit was made possible by higher revenues and lower spending during the period. As compared to the first five months of 2010, revenues are higher by P81.5 billion while spending is down by P71.08 billion. Furthermore, monthly collections are more than P1.89 billion higher than expected while monthly expenditures are almost P21.55 billion lower than programmed.

Facts and figures that truly matter to the people have been ignored in Aquino’s SONA – P125 or the amount of legislated minimum wage hike workers have long been demanding to help them cope with ever rising cost of living; 6,453 hectares or the size of Hacienda Luisita lands that should have long been owned and controlled by farmers and farm workers; 556,526 or the number of families living in informal settlements in Metro Manila and face the threat of forced eviction; 27 or the number of times that diesel prices have gone up since Aquino became President; and 48 or the number of victims of extrajudicial killings in his first year as Chief Executive, among others.

Satisfaction on Aquino’s administration was down in terms of disaster preparedness, and also in fighting terrorism and crime, although non-government organizations have already challenged the newly sworn-in president to prioritize disaster-preparedness. But as far as Aquino’s administration is concerned, there were improvements on weather forecasting by PAG-ASA. Same is true with PHIVOLCS and NDRRMC.

By using numbers, the President hoped to be objective in presenting his administration’s supposed achievements during the SONA. But he ended up ignorant of the numbers that truly matter.

           

Future Directions

                Where is the Philippines headed? Are we going to see better light in the years to come?

                If you see a loophole in the system, do not take advantage of it. Let us not acquire through patronage what we can acquire through hard work. No more cheating, no more taking advantage of others, no more one-upmanship—because in the end we will all realize our shared aspirations. All of us aspire for a corrupt-free system. We should also take part in changing the system so that we may attain that which we aspire for. Many of us think that government officials are corrupt. That may be true to some extent but there are also honest officials. Let us not lose faith in the government. After all, the government is there ultimately to serve its people and to maintain peace and order in the nation.

                We identified the poorest of the poor, and invested in them, because people are our greatest resource. Without regard for people, any democratic government will make no sense. In the end, people run the government. That is why all of the projects of the Aquino administration are always geared towards the welfare of the Filipino people. Through P-Noy’s leadership, how is the country faring in its journey to a peaceful and prosperous Philippines? How is the country doing in terms of treading on the straight path – ang daang matuwid?

The budget is the clearest manifestation of the straight path upon which we tread. P-Noy really pushed it hard to pass the 2011 National Budget on time. The passage of the budget on time is essential since the projects of the Aquino administration can start on time and materialize also on time. The day after his 2^nd SONA, the proposed national budget for 2012 has been delivered to the Congress. This is certainly an improvement and all of us can hope for the passage of the budget in due time, that is, before the year ends.

Now, our message to the world is clear: What is ours is ours; setting foot on Recto Bank is no different from setting foot on Recto Avenue. We do not wish to increase tensions with anyone, but we must let the world know that we are ready to protect what is ours. We are also studying the possibility of elevating the case on the West Philippine Sea to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, to make certain that all involved nations approach the dispute with calm and forbearance. Now, more than any other time, the Philippines has made its stand regarding the different claims to Spratly Islands. The government will defend the country’s territory and sovereignty. The modernization of the AFP is starting. And soon, the country will acquire more vessels, helicopters, patrol crafts and weapons.

                We are giving these poor families a chance to improve their lives, because their progress will be the country’s progress. At present, there are 1.6 million families who are beneficiaries of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program. P-Noy wants to expand this program to 3 million families before 2012 ends. Mothers are now having regular check-ups at health centers, babies are vaccinated and children are already going to school. This is a good consequence of the Conditional Cash Transfer Program. It is with hope that in the future, may all the families who benefited from the program return the favor to the country even through simple things.

                When the new Ombudsman, former Supreme Court Justice Conchita Carpio-Morales, takes office, we will have an honest-to-goodness anti-corruption office, not one that condones the corruption and abuses in government. Corruption and other wrong practices should never be tolerated in any government. That is why when the new Ombudsman takes office, cases will be filed against the corrupt along with their accomplices. It doesn’t end with the filing of cases but with the conviction of the offenders of the law.

                Today we can see that our taxes are going where they should, and therefore there is no reason not to pay the proper taxes. I say to you: it’s not just the government, but our fellow citizens, who are cheated out of the benefits that these taxes would have provided. This is why the BIR files cases after cases against tax evaders so that in doing so, the evaders may pay the proper taxes and other citizens will no longer think of dodging their tax obligations. Of course, everyone is hoping that in the future, no more cases will be filed against tax evaders because there are no more tax evaders. This aspiration is shared by the government especially by the BIR.

                How many years have we been over-importing rice? Many Filipinos thought that there was nothing we could do about it. We have seen in the news different warehouses where imported rice rots because they are not distributed to the people. Imagine the wasted food and wasted money for renting the warehouse and buying the imported rice. All of these are being resolved by the Aquino administration. There is an increase in rice production of 15.6%. This is brought by using the most effective types of seedlings, and careful and efficient spending on irrigation. We envision two things: first, an end to over-importation that only serves to benefit the selfish few. Second: we want rice self-sufficiency—that the rice served on every Filipino’s dinner table is planted here, harvested here, and purchased here.

                Let us stop pulling our fellow man down. Let us put an end to our crab mentality. Let us make the effort to recognize the good that is being done. Let us end the culture of negativism; let us uplift our fellow Filipinos at every opportunity. President Aquino asks Filipinos to stop the ‘culture of negativism’ or ‘crab mentality’. Let us be real Filipinos, patronizing our own products, respecting our laws, loving our country, being patriotic in simple ways and loving our fellow Filipinos. With this we can hope for a better Philippines in the coming years.

                I do not doubt that the reforms we are putting in place will yield concrete results. This is happening in many other places, and we will make it happen everywhere in our country. All of these things we are doing will be wasted if we do not do something to end the culture of corruption. Finally, let us take part in the government’s fight against corruption, against wang-wang, against entitlement, against abuse of power and authority. Then and only then will we see a better Philippines. We are on the way. Yes, we are.

ASSESSMENT OF P-NOY'S SECOND SONA

                  According to www.wikipedia.com a SONA is an annual event in the Republic of the Philippines, in which the President of the Philippines reports on the status of the nation, normally to the resumption of a joint session of the Congress (the House of Representatives and the Senate). This is a duty of the President as stated in Article VII, Section 23 of the 1987 Constitution:

“The President shall address the Congress at the opening of its regular session. He may also appear before it at any other time. ” 

             

                   The State of the Nation Address 2011 was delivered by President Benigno Aquino Jr. last July 25, 2011, at the Batasang Pambansa Complex, Quezon City, with thousands of spectators and Filipino people watching inside their homes. A lot of points could be cited in the SONA of PNOY, first thing is that it was delivered in Filipino, which we think is just the right thing to do because not all Filipinos understand the universal language and after all the SONA reflects the status of the country so it should be understood by its countrymen. It centered on the so called “wang -wang”, which is an implication of the corruption in the Philippines. It is not just about the usage of the siren but also the culture that has been a trend for us Filipinos, wherein a lot of officials commit graft and corruption. For the first SONA, he mentioned about the removal of “wang-wang” in his administration, it does not only pertain to the signaling in streets, or roads, but it is all about the changes that would lead to a better image of the government to the society, which is a step to minimize or better remove the corruption circulating in all departments of the government. There are also things that he mentioned about the achievements of his administration. But one thing that we don’t want to hear is the controversies of the previous government. Yes, it is just right to show off to the Filipino people about the anomalies of the latter, but to repeat it over and over is just a waste of time. Why not focus on program that would address the needs of the poor and the needy, instead of bothering to solve cases about the missing funds and the corruption of previous administration, well in fact a lot of issues are coming out but none of them was solved. PNOY should be hands- on in improving the country because its is his main role as a president, we are not saying that he should forget about the glitch of the past administrations, what we are trying to point out is that, he should focus on improving the current situations of the Filipinos. He should also be dedicating his time to develop ways on how to answer the questions of poverty

               It has already been a year for President Benigno Aquino Jr., but as far as the state of the country is concerned, we don’t really think that he has done enough to improve the lives of the Filipinos. During his SONA, he mentioned that the number of Filipinos that are hungry has come down, from 20.5% in March to 15.1% in June, through government's P21 billion cash transfer fund, which is a cornerstone for PNOY’s poverty alleviation program. It is a step for PNOY’s administration to address the problems of the country when it comes to poverty, but come to think of it, a certain percentage of decrease is not sufficient to say that fewer Filipinos are hungry, what we need to hear is that, every Filipino regardless of status is having a complete meal everyday. The president trumpeted about his accomplishments in the country's economy, including upgrades in credit ratings that reduced the country's interest payment by P23 billion since the start of his term. This is one thing that we should not be grateful of. A high or favorable credit rating indicates that there is less or no risk of defaulting on our loans. Thus, creditors are more willing to lend with lower interest rates and therefore “less” debt burden for the borrower, but the impact was passed to the people. To get hold of the upgrade, the administration made sure of paying our debts dutifully, but at the same time resorted to an enormous under-spending, which means increasing the allotment for debt servicing instead of spending it to the needs of the Filipinos. Despite the bigger debt servicing, total outstanding debt of the government still rose to 5.23 trillion as of April 2011 that includes the loan of the government from Asian Development Bank to fund the CCT program. This means that the P23 billion mentioned by Aquino as savings from lower interest payments will just be used to pay for the rising debt obligations of government, including those acquired for the Cash transfer program. Another alleged achievement for PNOY’s administration is the zero based budgeting. He quoted that to end the wang- wang culture, a zero based budgeting is implemented to end many wasteful programs. Zero based budgeting in its simplest terms, a budget where income minus the expenses equals zero. This signifies that every peso of the government’s income is properly accounted for. It might not be that accurate to plan for the budget in advance but this is a step closer to lessen the other projects of the government, and it is one way of leading to the right path as PNOY pointed out during his campaign. This is something that could be realistically accomplished within the term of office for President Aquino. With the use of zero based budgeting the government was able to cut or hold the fund for some pending with programs that are inefficient in delivering superior outcomes and at the same time expand the well performing programs that are addressing the needs of the people. It also pursued the difficult Government Controlled Corporation and to further considers the deactivation of other agencies and GOCCs.

                Definitely, the second SONA would not be the end for our president; he still has five more years to improve our country and the lives of the Filipino people. He also has a year to prove to us that he is really worthy of his position, and hopefully for the third SONA, changes for betterment would be implemented and promises would be eradicated. 

A “REFORM” BUDGET FOR 2011?

• Boiled Green Bananas
• BUSINESS MIRROR
• December 30, 2010
• By Liling Magtolis Briones

Last December 27, 2010 Pres. Aquino signed the 2011 National Budget into law. The budget was presented as a “reform” budget amidst cheers from the DBM, administration stalwarts in Congress and the Senate, as well as mixed reactions from media, civil society and the public.

What reform?

The 2011 budget has two features which are cited as justification for calling it a “reform” budget.

The first is that it was signed into law before the end of the year. The present administration deserves to be commended for the timely passage of the 2011 budget. Worries about a reenacted budget and all its attendant evils were laid to rest.

The second feature is the much vaunted use of zero-based budgeting as a basis for increasing or decreasing or even eliminating budget allocations. As pointed out earlier, ZBB was first introduced during the Martial Law rule of the late Pres. Marcos. It is a tool for ranking proposed budget allocations in terms of their responsiveness to the current priorities of the government.

During Marcos’ time, helped that Marcos was a dictator and the DBM could cut and reduce budget allocations as it pleased. For all the hoopla attending ZBB, it had only limited application to the 2011 budget.

First, there was time limitation—hardly two months before the budget proposal could be submitted to Congress. Second and more important, not all items—especially the biggest items– could be subject to ZBB. Special Purpose Funds, lump sum appropriations, automatically appropriated items like the debt service, could not be ranked by ZBB. Thirdly and most important, as a tool for ranking and rating budget allocations, a national plan has to be the basis or framework for ZBB. In the case of the Philippines, it is the Medium Term Development Plan or the MTPDP. It must be pointed out that the budget was completed before the MTPDP. We now have a case where the budget is leading the plan. In other words, what we have is the cart leading the horse.

Where are the reforms?

It must be recalled that the present administration used to be the opposition. The opposition exposed all the flaws and the shennanigans in the budget process during the past administration and even filed bills to correct these practices.

What were these budget reforms demanded by the then opposition (now administration)?

Down with lump sum appropriations! This was the battle cry then. So what happened to the lump sum appropriations? Instead of decreasing, they have increased. The national expenditures program originally proposed to Congress had over Ph94 billion in lump sum appropriations. It seems that the battle cry of the 2011 budget is Up with lump sum appropriations!

Is the CCT (Conditional Cash Transfer) the solution to poverty? Judging by the blare of trumpets and hymns of ecstatic praise, it appears that the Conditional Cash Transfer Program is the centerpiece of the national budget. As such it has been attacked from all quarters—civil society, media, academics, and members of Congress.

CCT is considered so important that the original Ph5billion allocation of former Pres. GMA has been quadrupled to Ph21 billion and the budget of the DSWD doubled.

The CCT budgetary allocation is double that of the entire budget of the DENR. For all the talk about climate change, loving the environment and doing something about the “inconvenient truth”, the reality is that one program allocation is double that of a major department.

Miraculously, after expensive vitriolic debates in both houses on the vulnerabilities of CCT, it emerged intact, unscathed and untouched when the budget was finally signed. Many are wondering: how much did it cost the administration to protect CCT from the clutches of both houses of Congress? What happened during the last hours—or is it early morning hours –when Congress finally passed the CCT? What happened in the Senate? And most curious of all: what happened during the Bicameral Committee meetings to which the public is not privy?

The merits and demerits of CCT have been discussed. It must be admitted that both the Lower House and the Senate have exposed serious flaws in the program. Social Watch Philippines has a position paper on the CCT. It is clear that giving away cash will not solve poverty. Jobs will.

One of the main requirements of an effective CCT plan is a clear exit strategy.

Once the government starts giving away money to people, they will get used to it and expect the government to give it to them permanently. Obviously, non-stop CCT is not sustainable especially since the government is piling up deficits and revenues are not enough. An exit strategy is obviously needed. Is there one?

What I know is that the World Bank has announced that in 2012 the CCT program will be expanded even more.

LIMIT THE NON-RELEASE OF LEGITIMATE APPROPRIATIONS AND THE CREATION OF FALSE SAVINGS!

This was another battlecry during the bad old days of the GMA administration. GMA was accused of not releasing legitimate budget allocations, labelling them as “savings” and transferring allocations to other programs and so on. For one year alone, she was accused of accumulating over Ph100 billion and transferring these to preferred agencies.

In the 2011 budget the President vetoed a provision on the use of savings from the CCT program, claiming sole executive power over savings. So what is new? Thus with the 2011 budget, the battle cry is “continue full executive control over the creation and release of savings.”

HOW ABOUT THE DISTINGUISHED “THIRD CHAMBER”?

When I was a graduate student in U.P. 50 years ago, the Bicameral Committee was referred to as “The Third House.” It has become more distinguished through the years and is now respectfully referred to as “The Third Chamber.”

As former opposition, the present administration used to decry the utter lack of transparency in the proceedings of the Bicameral Committee which reconciles the House and Senate versions of the budget. There are no minutes of the meeting and it is nigh difficult to trace who initiated last minute changes in the budget.

The situation has worsened. Only the respective chairmen of the two houses meet after dealing individually with interested legislators. The veil of secrecy has not been lifted even with the “reform” budget.

CHALLENGES IN THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE 2011 BUDGET

The major challenge in the implementation of the 2011 budget is monitoring. Since it is laden with special purpose funds, lump sum appropriations, automatic appropriations and all sorts of features which cannot be penetrated by the magic sword of ZBB, media, civil society and the public have to take up the challenge of monitoring actual implementation.

Where are the entry points for public participation and monitoring in the budget?

1. While the year 2010 is already ending and 2011 will commence in two days, there are still areas open for the public to monitor. For example, the books of accounts will not be closed exactly on December 31. Usually, adjustment entries have to be made before accounting books are finally closed. I know of instances when releases of checks continued well into February of the following year! This explains the long line of legislators who queue at the DBM during this period.
   It will do well for the public to monitor these last-minute releases which could run to hundreds of millions of the people’s money.
2. As for 2011, DBM has already announced that projects will already be front loaded and funds released. This is a rich area for public monitoring and budget tracking.
   Networks like Social Watch Philippines have member organizations which monitor programs in education, health, environment and agriculture. Locally based organizations can monitor projects implemented in their own localities.
3. There is the upcoming challenge of the 2012 budget which DBM is already starting to prepare. Yesterday, DBM convened a round of consultations among various departments and civil society organizations. Participating agencies include the Departments of Health, Agriculture, Education, Public Works and Highways, and Social Work and Development. The event is a precursor of more opportunities for public participation in the budget process.

The budget process is not the exclusive turf of one department. Budget preparation requires the strong hand of the president, especially in the identification of priorities. These have to be discussed and debated strongly in the Executive. The public has to be consulted in the determination of such priorities.

Budget debates are generally associated with the legislature. The budget only comes to the attention of the public when the documents are submitted to both houses of Congress. The crucial process of budget preparation is largely unnoticed by the public.

The budget is too important to be left to the government alone. More than ZBB, there has to be people participation. After all, the budget is the articulation of what a country wants for itself, where it wants to go, and what kind of development it aspires for the people. This is what governance is all about. Seriously.

Source:

http://www.up-ncpag.org/main/news/faculty-articles/63-faculty-corner/112-a-reform-budget-for-2011.html

National Budget's Priority Areas

Department of Education

It was announced that the DepEd’s appropriation for 2011 budget increased by almost 19% compared to last year’s (2010) budget. The department received a P207.3 billion, which is the largest portion of the year’s approved budget.

This is a big opportunity for the department to pursue its priority project that includes the universal kindergarten for all public schools. The public kindergarten program was set for five year olds as a preparation before they engage into basic education. And also, the department is currently studying the foundation on the twelve year basic education cycle. The purpose of this proposal to add two more years in basic education is to produce high school graduates who would be much prepared for heavy demands of college studies. The budget also allows the DepEd officials to hire 10,000 new teachers.

Department of Public Works and Highways

The DPWH was the second priority of the approved budget garnering P110.6 billion of the P1.645 trillion for this year. It was it was observed that the department has been slow in implementing infrastructure programs that resulted to under-spending. It was clarified by Public works secretary Rogelio Singson that this is a measure to make sure that expenditures would go into the right projects. Accordingly, this would enable the department to save or lessen their spending.

Though it was criticized of under-spending, the department had requested of a P129 billion proposed budget for 2012 but it was reduced to 125.9 billion by the Department of Budget and Management. The department aims for major long term infrastructure projects such as paving all national roads which would have been completed by 2016. But because of the reduction, it was declared that only 92% will be paved by 2016 instead of 100%.

Department of National Defense

The government has proposed a major increase in defense expenditure for year 2011 in what is seen as a bid to eliminate domestic insurgency and a reaction to military build-up in China. The allocated budget for this department was P104.7 billion which was accounted for the third biggest appropriation for this year’s budget.

According to budgetary papers, the 2011 allocation includes P82.3 billion for personal services, which includes military operations, P17.1 billion for maintenance and P5.1 billion for procurement. 

The increase in the defense budget was for the widely speculated build-up of Chinese naval forces in the region and heightened tensions surrounding the ownership of the Spratlys Islands, of which both China and the Philippines lay claim. This is to do with defending the Spratlys against Chinese encroachment. The government and armed forces are aware that in terms of external defense the Philippines' competence are nothing compared to China.