‘Let people participate in bottom-up budget process’

Budget Secretary Florencio “Butch” Abad yesterday expressed hopes to expand the government’s Bottom-up Budgeting (BUB) next year to end patronage politics and to allow  the community  to take part in identifying programs to ease poverty.

“Before, people received help from just one hand. For a long time, politics tends to promote dependency. Now, through BUB, people are empowered to determine their fate and address their basic needs,” he said in a press conference at the Montebello Villa Hotel in Cebu City.

Abad was among the guests during the BUB Summit which aims to map out strategies to improve the program’s implementation.

The government has appropriated P6.71 billion for the implementation of BUB in the Visayas next year.

The amount is higher that this year’s budget of P5.57 billion.

Abad said BUB is the antidote to political patronage.

“In a sense, this (BUB) is revolutionary. We empower those who for the longest time have never really participated in very important decisions of government,” he said.

In BUB, priority projects are identified jointly by citizens and their local government before they are incorporated into the proposed budget of the national government.

BUBs’ priority projects include hunger mitigation, job generation, climate change adaptation, disaster preparedness, and basic social services.

Abad was informed about reports that many local chief executives continue to intervene in the selection process of civil society organizations and sectors in the implementation of BUB.

Josefina Go, assistance secretary of the Department of Interior and Local Government, said they are trying to address the concern by issuing guidelines on BUB’s implementation.

Although he said BUB is for the benefit of all  regardless of political affiliation, Abad said he hopes that the program will continue under Liberal Party’s presidential bet Mar Roxas.

“Money is not much of a factor in this project’s success. What is more important is for the community to participate in the affairs of government,” he said.

In 2015, P5.57 billion has been allocated for the BUB program in the Visayas. Of the amount P1.8 billion went to Eastern Visayas which was devastated by Supertyphoon Yolanda in 2013.

“We have to give priority to the needs of the region because they were devastated by a typhoon which was unprecedented in the history of the world,” Abad explained.

“While others talk about livelihood, people from this region have yet to build their houses,” he added.