Re-channel to disaster management, social services

In today’s plenary debates on the 2010 national budget, Kabataan Party-list Rep. Mong Palatino once again pushed for the re-channeling of budget of the Office of the President to social services and disaster management.

Palatino said that some items in the Office of the President’s P4.3 billion budget remain questionable, while some are deemed either unnecessary or excessive.

Palatino, for instance, questioned the President’s P150 million in intelligence funds, which only she can approve for release, and the whopping P1 billion for the Commission on Information and Communications Technology’s telecommunication’s office, which merely functions to send telegrams.

The youth solon also noted that the Office of the President spent P148 million on local and foreign travels in 2008, aside from the controversial Le Cirque and steak dinners that earned the public’s ire a few months ago.

“Too many advisers, too many wasted funds”

Palatino also proposed a cutback on the number of presidential advisers and redundant executives.

“Arroyo has too many presidential advisers. By 2008, the number of presidential advisers and consultants reached an all-time high of 49, when other cabinet officials such as department heads and assistant secretaries can perform their functions anyway,” Palatino said.

Citing a study by the United Nations Development Programme, Palatino said the government could save as much as P58 million a year if it would remove all the redundant executives from the bureaucracy.

“Most of the redundant positions are with the Office of the President. Clearly, these appointments were made not out of genuine necessity but for political accommodation,” Palatino said.

Review and re-focus priorities of 2010 nat’l budget

“There are many lessons to be learned from the Ondoy and Pepeng tragedies. Perhaps, the most important is that the government should know where to prioritize allocation of funds. We are a disaster-prone country, and thus, this should be a consideration for our economic managers and budget planners,” Palatino said.

Palatino said the 2010 budget should reflect the need to improve disaster management, and the urgent necessity to provide social services especially to those who were left with nothing by the storm.
He asserted that a portion of President’s budget should be re-channeled to social services. “If the President is really sincere in helping out typhoon victims, she should give up unnecessary and excessive items in the Office of the President’s funds and allot these to those who need it most,” he said. ###