FORMER Cabinet members highlighted the Aquino administration's economic successes during a commemorative forum conducted on Friday.Former Public Works and Highways secretary Rogelio Singson recalled how the late former president Benigno Simeon 'Noynoy' Aquino 3rd's administration increased the government's infrastructure budget to P2.4 trillion from 2011 to 2016.'When we started in 2011, we're practically scraping the barrel and we just started with P146 billion for infrastructure for the whole government, which accounted for only 1.8 percent of our gross domestic product (GDP),' he said.'But by the time we left in 2016, we're able to ramp this up to as much as 5 percent of GDP and the budget for infrastructure was already at P759 billion,' he added.This infrastructure budget, according to Singson, allowed the Aquino administration to improve the quality of national highways, bridges and school buildings, among others.He included the NAIA Expressway, Tarlac-Pangasinan-La Union Expressway, NLEX Harbor Link, Skyway 3, Plaridel Bypass Road and Tarlac-Cabanatuan Expressway as key projects undertaken by the previous administration.'So, all of these have been there and it's a matter of executing them and as I said, I'm happy that [Public Works and Highways] Secretary Mark [Villar] continued many of these projects and he continued to benefit from inaugurating many of these as well,' Singson said.Former Socioeconomic Planning secretary Emmanuel Esguerra, for his part, noted that economic growth was maintained at 6.3 percent over the Aquino administration's six years. It was the highest level recorded throughout presidential terms or in terms of six-year moving averages since the 1970s.'What differentiates, however, the more recent performance from that of the 70s is the higher quality of growth, which was propelled by strong fundamentals and led by structural changes rather than being that debt-driven,' he said.Former Budget secretary Florencio Abad, meanwhile, said the Aquino administration generated budgetary space that allowed the government to dramatically raise budget allocations to important industries and programs.For example, he pointed out that the education sector's budget increased by 250 percent from P225 billion in 2010 to P551 billion in 2016.The Conditional Cash Transfer Program's fund has been boosted to P62.7 billion from merely P10 billion, according to Abad. The number of families eligible for assistance also picked up from 800,000 to 6.4 million. The budget for health facilities also rose from P4.5 billion to P26.9 billion.'This was possible because we improved revenue collections so that it reached about 16 percent of GDP by the time we left. We were able to do this without having to incur indebtedness,' he stressed, pointing out that debt as a percentage of GDP declined from around 52 percent to around 44 percent during their tenure.The commemorative forum was hosted by Stratbase ADR Institute, in partnership with the Ninoy and Cory Aquino Foundation.Other speakers include former Foreign Affairs secretary Albert del Rosario, who discussed the foreign policy of the Aquino administration; former Cabinet secretary Jose Rene Almendras, who tackled the role of public-private partnership to advance the infrastructure and development in the Philippines during the previous government; and former presidential adviser on the peace process Teresita Deles.
