Defining the News
One ingredient is missing from the national-budget making process, an ingredient that would give Congress access to the real facts and figures underlying the spending decisions of government departments, agencies and corporation. I am referring to a Freedom of Information Act.
The officials have been justifying their institutions’ budgetary requests with figures and facts that purportedly portray their institutions’ operations during the ending year. The representatives and the senators go over the proffered figures and, on the basis of their judgements as to the figures’ veracity, approve or disapprove, in toto or partially, the budgetary requests.
Corruption is, of course, the worst of the bad features of this country’s government budgetary system. Project-cost padding takes a heavy toll on the National Expenditure Program . Duplicated projects, projects that have previously received budget allocations –this is particularly true of farm-to-market roads—and ghost projects further reduce the GAA’s capacity to advance the nation’s economic agenda.
In the best of situations, Congress, DBM and COA coordinate their approval, releasing and audit operations more closely than they do at present. After all, what is the value of a good COA report if, to borrow a popular phrase, the horse has already left the barn? Monitoring the progress of DBM-released funds prevents misuse of the kind that the Filipino people saw recently in the case of the Office of the Vice-President of the Philippines.
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