Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, August 7) – The proposed 2024 national budget for President Ferdinand Marcos Jr’s overseas trips has been nearly doubled, while underspending agencies will deal with some cuts, the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) said Monday.
Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman said the traveling budget for Marcos and his men, which counts both state visits and road shows, is ₱1.148 billion for next year. It is 71% more than this year’s ₱670 million.
Of the ₱670 million allotted for Marcos’ foreign trips this year, ₱444.8 million has been spent as of end-June.
Pangandaman said the allocation for the overseas trips for 2024 is not comparative to previous years, or should not be viewed apples to apples, because there’s that variable of the pandemic when travel had been restricted.
“May significant increase from previous years because of the pandemic, sarado ang world economy… Since bago ang president, maraming invitation mula sa ibang bansa,” she said.
[Translation: There is a significant increase from previous years because of the pandemic, the world economy was closed… Since there’s a new president, there are many invitations from other countries.]
The DBM secretary added that there will be no reenacted budget under Marcos’ watch.
Deliberations on the 2024 national budget at the House of Representatives are expected to kick off within the month, on course for a yearend passage. The lower chamber received the proposed ₱5.768-trillion budget for 2024 last week.
Budget cuts
Some agencies, however, will see their expenditure program for 2024 trimmed because of underspending, or in fiscal parlance – they have a low budget utilization rate (BUR).
DICT is among them, with a cut of P1 billion after spending just 7% of its allocation for 2023 as of end-June. The DBM chief said DICT is one of the prominent agencies known to have a low utilization rate.
“Only 7% as of budget call ‘yung nagagastos nila… Binawasan natin at hinihingan natin sila ng catch up plan,” she added.
[Translation: They only utilized 7% as of budget call… We have reduced it and we are asking them for a catch-up plan.]
“They promised to have a catch-up plan and increase their utilization rate before the start of the deliberation because who knows Congress might increase their budget for next year,” Pangandaman said.
Similarly, budget allocation for the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) was also cut by less than P1 billion.
But the DBM said the 2024 budget for state subsidies and other welfare spending did not see a change over 2023 levels.
