Finishing touch
“Speaker Martin Romualdez said it would only take a quick review and approval from the Senate to realize the pro-poor intentions of BBM through the budget.
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Daily Tribune“Speaker Martin Romualdez said it would only take a quick review and approval from the Senate to realize the pro-poor intentions of BBM through the budget.
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The P5.268 trillion Unity Budget for next year received an adrenaline shot from the House of Representatives worth P77 billion, mostly in subsidies to the poor.
The original program that came from the Department of Budget and Management had allowed a record P206.5 billion in assistance to the poorest sector based on the marching order of President "Bongbong" Marcos to care for the poor.
The responsive budget was meant to help the sectors of society that most needed the financial assistance including wage earners.
Left-wing groups have been pumping up the noise lately on prices despite the reality that the phenomena of high inflation is global, mainly because of the unresolved geopolitical conflict.
As natural calamities become more devastating and frequent, a substantial part of next year's appropriations will be for emergency aid.
In his budget message, the President said "we must not neglect the poorest of the poor. As I said in my State of the Nation Address, we will continue to care for our countrymen who are in dire poverty. We will not neglect them."
The House emphasized BBM's call by adding to the provisions for the poor.
Part of the additional aid goes to the Department of Transportation's P5.5-billion to address rising transport cost, broken down as P2.5 billion for fuel subsidies, P2 billion for free rides, and P1 billion for the construction of bicycle lanes. The Department of Labor and Employment will get P3 billion for emergency employment and P2 billion for livelihood. Speaker Martin Romualdez said it would only take a quick review and approval from the Senate to realize the pro-poor intentions of BBM through the budget.
Romualdez views the Senate and the House seeing "eye-to-eye" on the increased aid as both chambers share the objective "to pass a people's budget that reflects President Marcos Jr.'s eight-point economic agenda that will help the country bounce back from the pandemic."
The battle would be in the bicameral conference committee regarding the new House items.
The Department of Budget and Management wanted the General Appropriations bill passed before the turn of the year to prevent a reenactment of the 2022 budget that will mean derailing some of the coming year's strategies.
A review of the amendments shows that most of the amount in the House proposal is meant to beef up support for education, health, transportation, and other critical social services to help the country rise from the devastation caused by the two-year pandemic.
"These institutional amendments will redound to the benefit of the people. We will never go wrong if we give priority to the welfare of our countrymen," Romualdez said.
The most pressing concern is for Congress, specifically the Senate, to muster the will to rise above politicking and swiftly hand the budget to President Marcos and have it signed before the year ends which means a window of just a little over one month.
The clock is ticking fast and at stake at the end of the line is the welfare of the public that the Senate should recognize.
