DepEd officials school lawmakers on budget processes

Sofia Tomacruz

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DepEd officials school lawmakers on budget processes
'The fate of the national budget, the appropriations act, is actually in the hands of the legislature which has the power of the purse.That is very very clear in the Constitution,' says Education Secretary Leonor Briones

MANILA, Philippines – As lawmakers at the House of Representatives continued to express concern over supposed “deep cuts” in the Department of Education’s (DepEd) budget, Education Secretary Leonor Briones schooled lawmakers on government budgeting processes with the shift to a cash-based budgeting system.

Hindi naman kaya dinedepensa ko ang kabuoang NEP (National Expenditure Program), pero ito ang resulta ng desisyon ng executive. I try to assure you na pinag-defend din namin (budget proposal) kasi may series of discussions also, may series of hearings din at the level of the Department of Budget and Management (DBM),” Briones said during the DepEd’s budget briefing at the House of Representatives on Tuesday, August 28.

(I cannot defend the entire NEP but this is the result of the executive’s decision. I try to assure you that we defended (the DepEd proposed budget) because there was a series of discussions, series of hearings at the level of the Department of Budget and Management.)

ACT Teachers representative Antonio Tinio asked DepEd officials how the department could justify cuts in education programs as it presented a lower budget to Congress. “Ang pangunahing concern po actually ng lahat ng mga miyembro ng Kongreso, yun ngang napalaking reduction sa budget – P51 billion kumpara sa nakaraang taon. Parang first time na nangyari ito in very many years. How can you justify the massive cuts?” (READ: How the cash-based budget affects DepEd)

(The foremost concern of all member in Congress is the drastic reduction in budget – P51 billion compared to the previous year. This is the first time this has happened in many years. How can you justify the massive cuts?)

However, Briones said a majority of government agencies naturally saw lower allocations in the proposed 2019 NEP as budget assessments from the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) will now be based on what an agency can deliver by year-end instead of only obligate. Briones is a former National Treasurer of the Philippines.

“The DBM looks at the entire country, they are the ones that allocate (funds). We submit to DBM, we have a series of meetings on requirements, etc, and then you have the overall policy,” she said.

For 2019, the DepEd was allocated P527.714 billion or 72.1% of its P732.28 billion proposed budget. The 2019 allocation is 8.92% lower than its 2018 budget of P579.419 billion.

Breathing room: DepEd Undersecretary Annalyn Sevilla also told lawmakers another reason for the lower proposed budget of the education department was the fact that an academic year overlaps two fiscal years. 

While a fiscal year starts in January and ends in December, a school year usually starts in June or July and ends around March or April. Sevilla said the DepEd took this into account when planning, which is why programs such as the construction of classrooms and creation of textbooks had decreased allocation of funds in 2019.

Along with Tinio, Nueva Vizcaya Representative Luisa Cuaresma had expressed concern over the “vast difference” in the number of new classrooms that would be built under the basic education facilities fund (BEFF) in the DepEd’s 2019 proposed budget.

“When we computed, the requirements that will spill over to January and March was cut and will be included in the next year’s budget. This is what will happen in DepEd because we are transitioning from obligation (based) to cash-based. The amounts that were removed here will now go to the next year (in) 2020,” Sevilla said.

Fund allocations for BEFF was 67.1% lower from P105 billion in 2018 to P34 billion in 2019. Among other programs under the BEFF, this translates to about 4,089 new classrooms as opposed to 46,415 new classrooms.

Undersecretary Alain Pascua told lawmakers the upside of lesser new classrooms would be that the DepEd would have breathing room to finish the backlogs in the construction of about 80,000 classrooms, which were planned for as far back as 2015.

“With that kind of breather, where no additional burden will be placed upon the DPWH and the DepEd, we can complete all of the more than 80,000 classrooms by December of 2019. That’s the rationale provided us by the DBM to give us a breather this time. That’s why they gave us a small amount of classrooms to be built,” Pascua said.

What should be compared: With a new budget system in place, Sevilla told lawmakers that what should be compared against the DepEd’s 2019 proposed budget is the cash-based equivalent of DepEd’s 2018 budget.

Kaya po nakakalito dahil kino-kompare natin yung obligation na mayroon pong school-year basis, yun po yung P579 billion. Pero kung babalik tayo sa ano lang yung mababayaran ngayong 2018 ay P468.9 billion lang,” Sevilla said. (That is why it’s confusing because we are comparing the obligation that has a school year basis, that is the P579 billion. But if we go back to what was only spent in 2018, it’s only P468.9 billion)

If this is to be followed, Sevilla said the DepEd’s proposed 2019 budget of P527.714 billion would in fact reflect a 12.5% increase from the cash-based equivalent of P468.9 billion from its P579 billion 2018 budget.

Stick to old ways? While the DepEd said it has planned for a change in budget systems, lawmakers still asked the DepEd if it preferred the cash-based system over the previous obligations-based system. Briones, however, told lawmakers the department was in no place to suggest to lawmakers how it should move forward with the budget. 

“The executive cannot advise the legislative (on the budget). Not even off the record,” Briones said.

She added, “The fate of the national budget, the appropriations act, is actually in the hands of the legislature which has the power of the purse. What the executive does is propose and the legislature disposes, and it goes back to the executive; executive implements. That is very very clear in the constitution.”

Lawmakers earlier locked horns with the DBM as they initially refused to support a cash-based budgeting system, which resulted in a deadlock over the 2019 budget.

No less than President Rodrigo Duterte met with House leaders as well as Budget Secretary Diokno and Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez to convince them to break the impasse and find a compromise on the 2019 budget. – Rappler.com

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Sofia Tomacruz

Sofia Tomacruz covers defense and foreign affairs. Follow her on Twitter via @sofiatomacruz.