Advocates of artificial birth control methods are up in arms over a very sizable cut in the budget of the Department of Health, specifically in the budget for the implementation of the Reproductive Health Law.
RH champions, Senators Miriam Defensor-Santiago and Pia Cayetano described the P1-billion cutback as immoral and expressed displeasure over Senator Loren Legarda, chairperson of the Senate Finance Committee for deleting the sum intended for the wholesale purchase of condoms, contraception pills, injectables, IUDs and other contraceptive supplies.
The procurement of these supplies worth P1 billion is effectively stalled if not entirely deleted from the current year’s budget. Suppliers, even more than RH advocates, are chafing over this unexpected development.
It is true what Senator Defensor-Santiago said – the RH Law was passed after much hardship, notably overcoming more than 45 years of unyielding opposition from the Catholic Church that the approval of the law in 2012 may be likened really to a battle won. But with the bicameral conference committee or Bicam for short practically castrating the measure, it’s a hollow victory for RH advocates.
That the RH was spayed in the Bicam, through Senate Finance committee chairperson Senator Legarda, adds mystery to the events because she voted for the passage of the controversial law.
She is clearly not the enemy that Sen. Santiago is talking about.
As has been reported, Legarda decided to chop off P1 billion from the DOH allocation because in 2015 it spent only 29% of the department’s total budget, leaving 71% untouched.
In plain terms, why give P1 billion more when the absorptive capacity of the DOH is only 21%? Why, that looks to me like the administrative budget only of the department. Sounds logical that
P1 billion was deleted, in which case, Sen. Legarda impresses me as an astute lawmaker familiar with the nuts and bolts of the national budget as well as the weak performance of the executive department.
There is irony though in the Bicam move because for many years now, observers have been wary over the power of the Third Chamber, as the Bicam is oftentimes called.
In an online article attributed to UP professor of economics and former Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno, it said the workings of the Bicam had become very “secretive and opaque” over time.
The work of reconciling differences in the House and Senate versions of the budget, which is the mandate of the Bicam, is limited to “four eyes” only, in this case, the incumbent chair of the House Committee on Ways Congressman Romero Quimbo and Senate Finance Committee chair, Senator Legarda.
In criticizing the Bicam’s authorization process, Professor Ben Diokno highlights the need to pass the Freedom of Information measure and make Bicam proceedings public. Since the Senate appears to dominate the authorization process, shouldn’t Senators Santiago and Cayetano investigate the Third Chamber and push the passage of the FOI Bill?
That the Bicam needs to resolve transparency issues is evident after last year’s lobby by the Cooperative sector to increase the budget of the Cooperative Development Authority CDA in the 2016 GAA went kaput.
The budget of the agency which tends to 24,000 self-help organizers is a measly P329 million. A division in the Agriculture Department called the Carabao Center even has a bigger budget of more than P400 million in the previous year.
Perhaps thinking that asking for at least P500 million-increase during the centennial celebration of Philippine coops was timely, the sector urged Congress to give CDA a bigger budget.
The rationale for the budget increase is to enable the agency is well established: to conduct education and training for micro and small cooperatives, which represent 76% of the total number of coops nationwide. The increase in the agency’s budget would have empowered the agency to hire and train more people who, in turn, will enable micro and small self-help organizations to grow and become effective instruments of poverty alleviation and inclusive growth.
From what I gathered, Cong. Quimbo and Senator Ralph Recto made assurances to increase the CDA budget but they were overpowered in the Bicam by Senator Legarda.
Reports say the Bicam gave the agency only a pittance – 2% increase or approximately P20 million earmarked for retirement of its employees. I heard Recto walked out of a Senate hearing to show his displeasure because he had given word to up the CDA budget by at least P200 million.
The previous year marked 100 years of Philippine cooperatives. There was really nothing to celebrate if one considers that the Executive Department through the Dept. of Finance even lobbied to lift the tax exemptions of self-help organizations. Luckily, it didn’t come to pass after coops staged nationwide protest demonstrations.
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