The Aquino administration submitted to Congress on Wednesday, the P2.6-trillion national budget proposal for 2015, which would involve what Cabinet Secretary Rene Almendras described as the “outcome-based performance-informed budgeting (PIB) strategy.”
Almendras said that in the 2015 National Budget, “everything is detailed.”
“There are no lumpsum amounts,” Almendras said in a forum organized by the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster ng Pilipinas (KBP) Cebu chapter at the University of San Jose–Recoletos.
PIB is a scheme that uses performance information in deciding where the funds will go.
Performance information includes the purpose for the funds required, the output expected to be produced or the services that would be rendered, the outcomes that would be achieved by the services, and the cost of the programs and activities proposed to achieve the objectives.
PIB, according to Almendras, is different from the traditional line item-based budgeting as it focuses more on outputs and outcomes and places less emphasis on inputs.
Almendras explained that the shift to PIB was in line with the Aquino administration’s goal to strengthen the link between planning and budgeting and to simplify the presentation of the budget to make it more understandable to the public.
“We have many roads projects that are not properly constructed and bridges that leads to nowhere so before we think of projects, we must first take into consideration what will be the outcome of this project,” said Almendras.
In 2012, the administration develop an output based budgeting system which will be changed next year (2015) to an outcome based budgeting system.
Outcome based budgeting system will focus on the economic impact of different government projects.
In transforming a government organization, three things need to be considered; first is structure, second is people and lastly, processes.
“It has to be performancebased so that those who are sacrificing and putting more efforts on their jobs will be given extra credits,” said Almendras.
Cebuanos benefitted
Echoing the president’s line, Almendras insisted on the legality of DAP, citing Sec. 38 of the Administrative Code of 1987.
Almendras mentioned that in Cebu, most of the DAP-funded projects here were spent on training under education, specifically skills training supervised by the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA).
Real tears
Meanwhile, Almendras said President Aquino’s tears during his 5th State of the Nation Address were not scripted.
He said that the portions of the SONA where Aquino was talking about his parents who fought for democracy, the legacy they left, and how he would not let his administration’s detractors take away the gains his presidency had achieved the past four years were those of Aquino.
“That was not part of the original speech,” Almendras said of the emotional statements of Aquino in his SONA. He added that they were able to submit the copy of the speech at past 2 p.m. on Monday.
“You cannot blame him for what he felt. He is just a human being,” he said. /With Interns Zonah Mae Perez and Kristal Eduyan