Money tree farm

EDITORIAL

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10/18/2009

Gloria’s mathematics must be off, else, why the need for the government to float P50 billion in reconstruction bonds to raise P12 billion of funding for relief efforts on victims of the recent typhoons that ravaged the country?

The P12 billion approved by Congress to replenish the calamity fund was meant for the money needed for relief efforts the rest of the year since the requirements for next year are expected to be covered by the 2010 budget.

Prior to the typhoon, P50 billion was allocated by Congress for infrastructure funding that formed part of the P330-billion economic resiliency program (ERP) which was supposed to be the antidote to the global slowdown that had weakened the economy.

That was P50 billion that came and went and presumably was entirely exhausted by the time that the typhoons struck since some of it could have been realigned for relief while waiting for the refunding of the calamity fund from Congress.

Also former economic officials Leonor Briones, who is a former National Treasurer, and former Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno have said Arroyo has the habit of impounding portions of the Congress-approved budget to realize savings which then can be disposed of the next year at her discretion. And does she not do this year after year, impounding tens of billions which she never accounts for, and spends the funds as she pleases, and not as the Congress intended the funds for?

Rep. Teofisto Guingona III said Gloria also delays the release of appropriated funds to deliberately have these funds converted into savings.

Guingona also said Gloria with the help of her allies in Congress have been making a mockery of the budgetary process through the delay or the outright reenactment of a previous year’s budget.

It is under the Gloria regime that government has worked under too many reenacted budgets, and nor surprisingly too, they usually come just before election bells start ringing.

But delaying the budget works wonders for Gloria since she works under a reenacted budget while waiting for Congress to pass the appropriations bill for the year.

Guingona said that a delay of three months, for instance, allows Gloria to work on three months under the reenacted budget while spending the entire amount of the new budget for nine months.

Working under a reenacted budget altogether affords Gloria all the advantages of the world to juggle the people’s money since most of the projects specified under a reenacted budget were already covered in the previous year’s budget.

Gloria might be angling for more savings by raising the amount of funding for relief efforts over the amount which was approved by Congress.

By next year, that becomes, again, disposable fund for Gloria to spend as she pleases, which is why she has, just for her ostentatious and expensive trips abroad, totaled some P6 billion from the start of her stolen presidency.

Even the existence of the Manuel Pangilinan as head of the restoration committee does not alter the fact that based on estimates, it would take P12 billion for the government to provide relief until the end of the year while Gloria seeks to float P50 billion in bonds supposedly for reconstruction.

The common equation for the bonds that Gloria is now seeking to float and the actual purpose for it, is that it will be spent for infrastructure.

Not a year ago, a controversy has been spawned after the World Bank blacklisted several local and Chinese companies for rigging the bids for major government construction projects.

The kickback and commission trail on these projects again led to the doors of Malacañang.

Gloria and her cabal have been consistent on that racket of theirs.

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