NEDA pushes for stronger Planning Department

In a recent Senate hearing, National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) Secretary Arsenio M. Balisacan emphasized the need for the Economy, Planning, and Development Bill (NEDA Bill) to establish the Department of Economy, Planning, and Development (DEPDEV).

Balisacan highlighted that transforming NEDA into a full-fledged department would address several key issues.

These include the inconsistency of public policies, misalignment between national and regional plans, and the lack of continuity in plans and programs.

He noted that the reorganization would also strengthen the links between planning, investment programming, budgeting, monitoring, evaluation, and feedback processes.

“Linking the national plans to the budget is a very challenging issue. While the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) and NEDA have been cooperating and coordinating over the years in matching the programs and projections (PAPs) in the plans with the budgeting, this has been ad hoc and dependent on the decisions of the current secretaries because it has not been institutionalized or included in their respective mandates. That’s what we are trying to address in this bill,” Balisacan said.

The hearing, conducted by the Senate Committee on Economic Affairs along with other relevant committees, saw support from key senators.

Senator Miguel Zubiri and Senator Sherwin Gatchalian expressed the necessity of a stronger connection between planning and budgeting to ensure that the programs and projects crafted by NEDA and the Regional Development Councils (RDCs) receive appropriate funding.

“Evaluation is also one that we are trying to strengthen because we really don’t have a systematic process of seeing whether the projects that are being supported are working or not, are achieving their objectives or not… That’s a major feature we want to do here so that we can ensure that the projects being funded by the people’s money are actually achieving their objectives,” Balisacan added.

Senator Imee Marcos, a proponent of the bill, aligned the initiative with Article 12, Section 9 of the Constitution, which mandates Congress to establish an independent economic and planning agency led by the President.

Following the hearing, Zubiri announced the formation of a technical working group to consolidate various versions of the bill and expedite its passage.

This move is seen as pivotal in institutionalizing the monitoring and evaluation of priority programs and ensuring consistent policy implementation across different administrations.