Minority legislators seek to realign P673B in confidential, intel funds

MINORITY LEGISLATORS at the House of Representatives called for P673 billion worth of budget realignments to support agriculture programs and wage subsidies.

The Makabayan bloc proposed to reduce allocations for so-called confidential and intelligence funds to generate funding for the desired programs.

The legislators were lobbying for the changes to the proposed P6.352-trillion budget for next year, proposing also to realign funding from unprogrammed appropriations for foreign-assisted projects and road development projects of the Department of Public Works and Highways.

The proposal was submitted last week to a House small committee, which is responsible for overseeing individual amendments to the budget bill.

The Makabayan bloc members are Party-list Reps. Arlene D. Brosas, Raoul Danniel A. Manuel, and France L. Castro.

The proposed realignments “serve the best interests of our people,” according to a document outlining the proposed reallocations obtained by BusinessWorld.

The House approved House Bill No. 10800 or the General Appropriations Bill on final reading last week, ahead of its month-long break and 58 days after receiving the spending plan from the executive branch.

It adopted committee amendments to the spending plan during plenary deliberations while creating a small committee to address individual amendments to the budget bill, allowing the chamber to meet its self-imposed September deadline.

The Department of Agriculture, Sugar Regulatory Administration, and the National Food Authority (NFA) are to receive P390 billion in additional funding under Makabayan bloc’s budget proposal. Of this, P242 billion will go towards agricultural production subsidies for farmers, with P101 billion to fund the procurement of palay (unmilled rice) by the NFA.

“In order to help the farmers and fisherfolk affected by increasing costs of farm inputs, rising fuel prices, and calamities and typhoons, we propose to allocate funding for production subsidies,” according to the document.

The government’s rice development program’s budget would more than double under the Makabayan proposal to P90 billion from P31.39 billion.

The Labor, Trade and Migrant Workers departments are to collectively receive an additional P100.7 billion to boost wage subsidies and cash assistance programs under the proposal.

The Makabayan legislators backed an additional P40 billion for the Department of Trade and Industry to support wage subsidies for small businesses. The proposed subsidy program is to help keep small businesses stay afloat by providing P8,000 per worker.

“The Wage Subsidy Program for MSMEs (micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises) in the 2025 budget (would) shoulder up to 70% of the minimum wage of workers in such enterprises,” according to the proposal.

The legislators also proposed P47.6 billion for the Labor department for a one-time cash assistance program worth P20,000 for the unemployed, as well as an additional P58.8 billion for the Health department to increase funding for public hospitals.

“To deliver the much-needed services to the people and to address the high household out-of-pocket expenses, we need to give sufficient budgets to the public hospitals,” the legislators said. — Kenneth Christiane L. Basilio