Senators seek more economic benefits from P5-T proposed nat’l budget

Senate Minority Leader Franklin M. Drilon lamented the measly funding set aside under the P5 trillion proposed 2022 national budget to assist thousands of distressed small and medium enterprises affected by the continuing pandemic.

Drilon described as measly the P3.45 billion that the government has allocated for the MSME Development Program of the Department of Trade and Industry as against the P28 billion allocation for anti-insurgency lodged in the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC).

“This is such a small amount especially when we look at the NTF-ELCAC of P28 billion. The skewed priorities are so clear. I hope they can consider this. We should be able to support SMEs especially when they are struggling. Marami na pong nagsasara sa kanila,” Drilon said.

Drilon stressed that the backbone of the Philippine economy employs 63% of our workforce.

“Yet, we only allocate P3.45 billion as against P28 billion for NTF-ELCAC. What kind of prioritization is that?” Drilon lamented. The MSME Development Program is an existing program of the DTI, not a new program specifically designed to provide stimulus to struggling MSMEs. In 2018, it was allocated P2.246 billion. Three years and a pandemic later, we are only allocating P1.2 billion more for our MSMEs. The budget is clearly out of touch with our country’s current situation.

“Our MSMEs, which employ 63% of our country’s workforce, are currently struggling and are in danger of folding given the successive lockdowns. We should provide adequate support to them,” Drilon said.

He said the budget should provide for economic aid, saying it is necessary considering that about 4 million Filipinos continue to be unemployed, and according to an SWS survey, about 3.4 million families went hungry as recently as June 2021.

“Trillions of pesos are being borrowed each year and yet the government has only allocated P3.45 billion for the sector that has lifted our economy for decades. I don’t think that is proportionate to their contribution to our economy,” Drilon said.

The minority leader, who has been scrutinizing the country’s expenditures for 23 years, appealed to the committee to augment the assistance to SMEs.

 

FOCUS ON JOB CREATION

With the pandemic still battering the country’s employment numbers, Sen. Joel Villanueva called on the government to “wring out as many jobs as possible” from the next year’s P5.02 trillion national budget.

“We should be creating more jobs out of the buck. This budget should be a job generator,” Villanueva said.

He said the national budget “should not merely count the pesos we are spending on public payroll but the most important, in my view, are the new jobs it should create.”

Villanueva said public spending should not just focus “on the health emergency we are facing but also in creating emergency employment to replace ones that the pandemic destroyed.”

“If there is a ‘build, build, build,’ all the more should there be a ‘jobs, jobs, jobs’ program because the latter addresses COVID’s harshest side effect – the loss of income by many breadwinners,” he said.

Villanueva said the government “can maximize the ‘EQ,’ or the employment quotient, of infrastructure spending by mandating contractors to tap labor from among the qualified residents where the project is located.”

“For example, mobilizing farmers and paying them to maintain the irrigation canals that are vital to their livelihood is one way of providing additional income to the people who feed us,” he said.

He said infrastructure funds, especially on farm projects and health facilities, should be released promptly and “spared from underspending.”

“Sa susunod na taon, gagasta po tayo ng P19 billion sa ilalim ng Health Facilities Enhancement Program. Dapat ito maagang ma-release. Ito ang mga pasilidad na magliligtas na ng buhay, magbibigay pa ng trabaho,” Villanueva said.

Another way of creating jobs is for the government “to stop exporting taxpayer’s money” by buying goods and equipment that are made locally.

“Government should be the first one to patronize Filipino products. Buying agencies should not act as import facilitators,” he said.

Villanueva pressed anew his proposal for “a kind of spending anchored on job creation” during Wednesday’s briefing by the economic managers on the 2022 national budget.

He said the ambitious National Employment Recovery Strategy (NERS), a job creation blueprint unveiled early this year by the administration, should be monitored and its progress charted.

He said jobs created through NERS should be “counted like COVID cases” because only through “meticulousness will we be able to know if it is working or not.”

To have an “honest jobs count,” a scorecard is needed, he said.

“Ayaw po natin na parang ang programang ito ay tila bang attaching a new label to an old box. Yung parang existing jobs na pala tapos binilang lang as NERS initiative,” Villanueva said.

With a claimed budget of P1.14 trillion, the NERS was launched through Executive Order No. 140, which assigns what role participating agencies play.

Villanueva has filed a bill institutionalizing the TUPAD as a regular government program that would serve as a safety net for the displaced workers.