Louven Gem C.

Peanueva BSPT-2A

Editorial: Too many billions for lump-
sum appropriations
August 4, 2014
Now that the government has acknowledged that the spending of public funds must be in
accordance with law through the General Appropriations Act, as decreed by the Philippine
Constitution, the debate over the propriety of the various projects shifts to Congress.
The Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) which the Executive Department had used for
years to dispose of billions of pesos without the needed covering laws has been stopped by the
Supreme Court. Henceforth, all spending must be approved by Congress, as it should have
been from the beginning.
The 2015 national budget submitted by the administration to the House of Representatives,
however, appears to have many items without specific amounts. Nearly 50 percent of the total
P2.606-trillion national budget is composed of lump-sum and automatic appropriations,
according to Social Watch Philippines (SWP), a private group that has made it its special
concern to keep a sharp watch on government spending. The total of these lump sum items is
close to P1 trillion, SWP said. These lump sums are to be disposed of by executive officials as
they wish. Only P1.739 trillion is itemized.
During the presentation to Congress, Budget Secretary Florencio Abad said the lump sums for
unitemized projects amount to only 29 percent; that would be P755 billion. Its still a huge
amount whose disposal is left to the discretion of DBM and other executive officials.
If the National Budget for 2015, with all its unspecified and unitemized lump sums, is approved
as is, it will at least be in compliance with the constitutional provision that all amounts spent by
officials are approved by Congress. But Congress will have surrendered its power of the purse
to the Executive to the extent that it allows lump-sum appropriations. It is like giving executive
officials a revolving fund, a petty cash kitty, which they can dip into as the need arises. No
wonder, the SWP and opposition leaders fear much of the 2015 budget will be used to support
administration candidates campaigning for the May, 2016, elections.
The ideal is still a National Budget with every project or program specified each with a
definite amount. Such a budget would be less susceptible to sleight-of-hand operations.




Synopsis:
The article is all about the lump-sum of the moneys that is used in the DAP. It is said that many
of the money were not used as beneficial to the Filipinos. Usually they paid a big amount of
money instead of paying it continuously in a small amount. Many of this money that is used are
given to the executive whenever they want to get it and it seems like they get this money for a
preparation this 2016 elections. For their endorsements, buying votes, etc. Based on the
presentation of the Budget secretary, the money that were spend for the unitemized project
were really big though its just 29 percent of the total money.





Reaction:

I agree to the author of the article about the wrong doings of our leader. It seems like
they are wasting the money of the Filipino people and this is not righteous. Still the DAP is
unconstitutional and they must respect the Supreme Court about. They have the right about
this because they have their independence. Again DAP is unconstitutional because of
transferring the money to other departments of the government instead of giving the money to
the people. It seems that their promise assigned to them as a leader was just erased or
disappeared in the eyes of the people. In accordance to the article this is an important news,
because it gives us the update about the DAP that we should be aware of the situation of our
government.