Civil society groups urge Congress to adopt people's alternative budget proposal

October 10, 2008

Refer to : Prof. Leonor Briones

Contact Nos. : 09175359884

Civil society groups urge Congress to adopt people's alternative budget proposal

"Protect the poor from the economic slowdown." This is the call of orange-clad members of the Alternative Budget Initiative (ABI) members as they trooped to the House of Representatives Session Hall Lobby holding orange umbrellas as symbols of protection for millions of poor Filipinos.

Members of the ABI campaign, which is globally recognized as one of the best practices in budget advocacy, attended the last day of Congress' plenary sessions on the 2009 budget to urge the Representatives to adopt the alternative budget proposals formulated by civil society groups and their partner legislators.

"We challenge Congress to scrutinize the executive budget and adjust it to account for the emerging worse scenarios for the rest of the year and for 2009," said Prof. Leonor Briones, lead convenor of Social Watch Philippines which organized the ABI. "This entails prioritizing essential social programs that will protect the poor, and spur the domestic economy, which are what the civil society's alternative budget proposal enshrines," the former national treasurer added.

Briones explained that millions of Filipinos are in grave danger of being hit by the economic storm because of overly optimistic assumptions of the executive's budget proposal. "The President's budget's macroeconomic assumptions reveal that growth projections are not attainable given the performance of the economy this year and the recent meltdown of the US financial market and its impending impact on the global economy," Briones explained

The alternative budget proposal for the 2009 national budget includes P43 billion increases in the allocations for basic and higher education, health, agriculture and environment. The group also identified the alternative sources of funding for the increases in the budget for social development which have no specific provisions and are subject to the discretion of one person and abuse.

"We challenged our Congressmen, as representatives of the people, to step up to identify and bravely cut unnecessary, wasteful and frivolous spending," Rene Raya of Action for Economic Reforms (AER) said. "The government needs to make adjustments in the proposed expenditure program to ensure that the budget will serve its development objectives and avoid incurring unmanageable budget deficit and a fiscal crisis" Raya added.

The group also called for the full release of approved budget increases for health, education, environment and agriculture. The ABI campaign during the previous years resulted to P5.2 billion increases in the budget for social development in the 2007 budget and P6.3 billion increases in the allocation for health, education, agriculture and environment in the 2008 budget.

"The alternative budget proposals, crafted by civil society groups and partner legislators, are the people's budget because it puts social development at top priority," said Thea Soriano, national coordinator of Education Network (E-Net). "Congress should be the people's allies in demanding for the full release of funds for people's welfare such as the funds for unpaid teachers' benefits of which only P77 million out of the P548 million allocations has been released; community based forest management; and autoclaves for hospitals of the Department of Health," Soriano said.

"Congress should formulate a national budget that would protect the people amidst a slackening economy, a rapidly increasing cost of living and a burgeoning global financial crisis," Briones said. "It is the duty of people's representatives to ensure that public money which came from the common people who work hard every day for their families to survive and whose sacrifices keep the nation alive are used to protect the welfare of the citizens themselves, because their welfare is the nation's security," Briones added.