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AKO BICOL PARTY-LIST
REP. ALFREDO A. GARBIN, JR.
Vice-Chair, Committee on Justice
0917-729-2437  | Twitter @AlfredoGarbin
BREAKING NEWS STATEMENT

PONDOHAN ANG DAPAT PONDOHAN, USAD AGAD MGA PROYEKTO SA 2021

2021 BUDGET MUST HAVE BUILT-IN MECHANISMS AGAINST DELAYS, CORRUPTION

It is crystal clear to us that the 2021 national budget must accomplish two major goals.

First, it must enable the country to fight COVID-19 by protecting our citizens, provide the health care needed, and get the most vulnerable vaccinated. On top of the COVID-19 funds in Bayanihan 1 and Bayanihan 2, the 2021 budget must anticipate COVID-19 necessities and other urgent public health needs.

Hindi dapat ma-delay ang availability ng COVID-19 vaccines, medicines, PPE, medical oxygen, hospital beds, at isolation centers. Ano pa ang silbi niyan kung end of the year pa maging available pero first quarter of 2021 kailangan? 

Second, it must be a potent economic stimulus package to restore jobs lost during the pandemic, reopen small and medium enterprises that shut down, and reverse the increases in poverty and hunger levels.

Consumer spending is down now.  Christmastime spending would probably be lower this year. OFW remittances would also be weak because of the tens of thousands migrant workers repatriated or came back home on their own. Among the worst hit are the farmers, fisherfolk, livestock raisers.

Given this economic scenario, government must intervene decisively with vigorous public spending.

Sa gobyerno aasa ang ating mga manggagawa, negosyo, at industriya dahil hindi nila kakayanin na sila lang. Maaasahan dapat ang gobyerno. At wala dapat korapsyon sa pondo.

ON SPENDING BAN

But there is another major problem we must also address now.

The Omnibus Election Code has a “prohibition against release, disbursement or expenditure of public funds.” We have elections scheduled on May 9, 2022.  The public funds spending ban takes effect 45 days before that election day. There are exceptions but these exceptions are restrictive or very limited.

My point is, given the current slowness of the government bureaucracy and its procurement process, the spending ban for the May 2022 elections is a real roadblock to government spending.

Ang mga proyektong pinondohan at ginastusan sa 2021, sa 2021 rin dapat ay umaandar na ang implementasyon. Hindi dapat abutin ng election ban.

Either we remove the roadblock or we do our best to make sure that all the funds are released and disbursed and the projects are well underway in 2021 and absolutely not later than February 2022.

For this 2021 national budget, the procurement process must be given a strict timeline. Therefore the government procurement, spending, and execution timeline is from January to December 2021 and all projects must avoid the election spending ban.

Absorptive capacity of the government agencies must be high next year because if it is not, then the stimulus effect is diminished and the budget would fail to revive our economy when we need it most to happen. (END)


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