A ‘people’s budget for prosperity’?

Finally, the official copy of the 2024 national budget is released on the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) website. After all the heated debates and discussions (and all the disappointments it engendered among the members of opposition blocs), it is finally out—a whopping P5.768 trillion to be spent within this year.

On the fourth page of the budget document, after the usual table of contents, is the full-page picture of DBM Secretary Amenah Flaminiano Pangandaman. She strikes a comely and elegant vision that resonates with the predominant colors of the graphics and texts of the document—green. She is shown wearing an elegant green silk outfit that complements very well with her hopeful and optimistic aura as if to resonate with the theme of this year’s proposed budget—that it is an “agenda for prosperity: securing a future-proof and sustainable economy.” Pangandaman presents an image of an empowered, elegant, and highly placed woman in the hierarchy of the pervasively male-dominated Philippine bureaucratic ladder. For the record, she is the first Muslim secretary of the powerful agency—the DBM—and the only Muslim in the Cabinet of President Marcos.

But this is not about the DBM secretary. It is about the sub-title of this year’s budget: “People’s proposed budget for 2024.” It remains to be seen how much of this avowed “people’s budget” reflects (or does not reflect) the aspirations of more than 25 million Filipinos living below the poverty threshold of P13,797 per month to meet basic food and nonfood needs as of the last quarter of 2023, according to a Philippine Statistics Authority report.

Signed on Dec. 20, 2023, by Mr. Marcos, Republic Act No. 11975, or the General Appropriations Act of 2024 is the very first budget formulated under the Marcos administration.

Once again, I take note of the top three agencies of government that got the huge blocks of budget allocation for this year: 1) Department of Education, including state universities and colleges, Commission on Higher Education, Technical Education and Skills Development Authority, at P924.7 billion; 2) Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), at P822.2 billion; and 3) Department of Health, and the government-owned and -controlled Philippine Health Insurance Corp. or PhilHealth at P306.1 billion. (I have written about the proposed budget when it was still under scrutiny and deliberation in Congress.)

I found it puzzling why the allocation for debt relief, or payment of government’s outstanding internal and external debts, is not placed as the third top allocation when it is given another huge amount, a 14.4-percent increase to P699.2 billion from P611.0 billion.

In the section on food security, the budget for 2024 claims that the Marcos administration “remains firm on making basic food items available and affordable to all Filipinos. In order to ensure enough supply of food while keeping food prices at bay, key programs and projects will be implemented in 2024 to strengthen local food systems, boost agricultural production, and diversify food sources.” But this line item assigned to the Department of Agriculture is at the lower rung of the priority budget allocations, in eighth place, with only a measly P1.84 billion.

The “people-centeredness” of the budget is based on the claim that the largest share of the budget, allotments for “ayuda” (social amelioration assistance to poor, distressed individuals in difficult situations, including the elderly), amounting to P500 billion, aimed to benefit around 12 million poor and low-income families or around 48 million individuals, according to Speaker Martin Romualdez.

But if this is a people’s budget aimed at making the greater numbers of poor Filipinos prosper in a world reeling from several financial crises, why are the items on food security given a measly allocation? Why does the DPWH continue to get a huge share of the budget? Who benefits from this avowed legacy of the Marcos administration to “Build Better and More”?

Our contemporary history shows the embeddedness of corruption in government offices—at the local, regional, and national levels. Even private sector contractors factor this in their proposals to government offices. Government officials with “squeaky clean” records in administering public funds are as rare as the blue moon; but corruption in government circles is as perennial as the grass, to borrow a line from “Desiderata.”

Perhaps this is indeed a people’s budget—the budget of people who stand to once again fatten their already bulging pockets from various strategies or forms of corruption.

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