National government wants to remain in charge of infra development

The Marcos administration wants the national government to remain in charge of infrastructure development longer,  such that the sector would likely be among the last to be devolved to local government units (LGUs).

Executive Order No. 138, issued by former President Duterte in June 2021, provides for the full devolution of certain functions of the executive branch of the government– including implementation of local infrastructure projects–to LGUs in line with the  Supreme Court’s Mandanas-Garcia ruling.

In an interview, Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman said the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) this week will present to President Marcos the results of the review on the  implementation of EO No, 138 undertaken by the Departments of Finance (DOF) and of the Interior and Local Government (DILG), as well as state planning agency National Economic and Development Authority (Neda).

Pangandaman said the DBM would recommend the “phasing” of the transfer of national government functions to  LGUs.

“We’ll just prioritize, we’ll come up with a menu, and a transition plan — phasing of our devolution, because I think the LGUs cannot implement other projects,” she said .

For Pangandaman, “big infrastructure projects and big-ticket items should still be with the national government.” This would mean infrastructure projects could be among the last to be devolved or transferred to LGUs’ supervision.

The Marcos administration wants to “build better more” by keeping public infrastructure spending levels within 5-6 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) during the next six years. By the time President Marcos steps down in 2028, the government planned to spend a record P2.38 trillion on infrastructure that year, equivalent to an also historic-high 6.3 percent of GDP.

As for other sectors, Pangandaman said the national government would assist and capacitate LGUs to assume the responsibility of supporting micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs), social services, and health care.

To recall, the Supreme Court granted in 2018 and reaffirmed a year later the petitions of Batangas Gov. Hermilando Mandanas and former Bataan Gov. Enrique Garcia Jr. that sought a bigger 40-percent share for the LGUs in the total collection of national taxes. These are taxes  collected by the Bureau of Internal Revenue , import duties collected by the Bureau of Customs and other taxes.

This is expected to boost the LGUs national tax allotment (NTA) to P959.04 billion in 2022, based on 2019 tax collections, from the P695.5 billion they got in the form of internal revenue allotment (IRA) last year.

With the higher NTA, the LGUs are expected to implement big-ticket projects and programs to be transferred to them by the national government..

Last month, Pangandaman said the DBM would be looking closely into how the LGUs were spending their larger budget share.