The national budget, former Clinton/Obama budget czar Jacob Lew said, is not just a “book of numbers.” The numbers, he added, “tell a story of what we are as a country. They are a fabric, a tapestry of what we believe.”
Based on the breakdown of the Philippines’ P4.5-trillion proposed budget for next year, we Filipinos can’t even say with confidence that the National Expenditure Program (NEP) would be spent on what we deeply feel should be the pressing, priority national expenditures: health, education and safety nets for the dislocated. The pandemic, after all, has shattered all assumptions of normalcy. Budgeting can’t be today’s wish list written according to old templates, an act of orthodoxy and whimsy. As such, the budget process can’t stray from the urgent funding priorities for health, education and the Social Amelioration Program (SAP). Adequately funding that trinity has to be the budgetary narrative until a semblance of normalcy shall have taken place.
Continue reading with one of these options:
Ad-free access
P 80 per month
(billed annually at P 960)
- Unlimited ad-free access to website articles
- Limited offer: Subscribe today and get digital edition access for free (accessible with up to 3 devices)