MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) released more than half of the P4.1-trillion 2020 national budget in January, a slower pace compared to previous years.
The latest DBM data showed that P2.1 trillion or 51.8 percent of this year’s budget was already handed out to government agencies and other automatic appropriations last month.
In January 2018, the DBM was able to release 78.8 percent or P2.9 trillion out of that year’s nonetheless smaller P3.767-trillion budget. Last year, the government-operated using reenacted 2018 appropriations in January due to late budget approval.
President Rodrigo Duterte signed this year’s general appropriations act (GAA) on Jan. 6, such that the DBM released the general allotment release order for 2020 on the same date.
For funds under the 2020 GAA or Republic Act (RA) No. 11465, allotment releases last month amounted P1.89 trillion or 66.4 percent of the P2.85-trillion program.
Comprehensive releases to government departments in January reached P1.83 trillion or 76.6 percent of the programmed P2.38 trillion.
As for special purpose funds, P66.9 billion or 14.3 percent of the P466.9 billion allotted for 2020 were already released.
Automatic appropriations—programmed over a period prescribed by law through outstanding legislation requiring periodic action by Congress—worth P231.6 billion or 18.5 percent of the P1.25-trillion program for this year were released in January.
These automatic appropriations included retirement and life insurance premium, internal revenue allotment (IRA) for local government units (LGUs), pensions of former presidents and their widows, special account in the general fund, net lending, interest payments, releases under the tax expenditures fund (TEF) for customs duties and taxes to be paid for government importation, as well as the block grant for the newly formed Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).
As such, P2.12 trillion out of the original P4.1-trillion program for 2020 was released last month.
Also released last January were P2.9 billion in other releases, including P1.8 billion from 2019’s continuing appropriations for departments on top of P1.2 billion in special-purpose funds.
President Duterte had extended the validity of the P3.7-trillion 2019 budget until this year to make up for underspending at the start of last year.
In all, the DBM released a total of P2.13 trillion or 51.9 percent of this year’s budget last January.
“The 2020 budget has been passed on time. A special law allows us to use the unexpended project funds from 2019. Greater public spending in infrastructure and social services, supported by an expansionary monetary policy and a benign inflation rate, should allow us to dramatically increase our pace of growth this year,” Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III said last week.
Last year, economic growth fell to an eight-year low of 5.8 percent mainly due to underspending on public goods and services during the first four months of 2019 no thanks to delayed budget implementation.