Duterte admin proposes nearly P704 billion in lump sum, unprogrammed appropriations for 2022

Published August 26, 2021 10:30 PM By VIRGIL LOPEZ,GMA News

The Duterte administration is seeking authorization from Congress to spend close to P704 billion in special purpose funds and unprogrammed appropriations for its last budget in 2022.

Special purpose funds (SPF), which are lump sum in nature,  are provided to cover expenditures for specific purposes for which recipient departments/agencies have not yet been identified during budget preparation.

Unprogrammed appropriations are items which will be funded “when revenue collections exceed the resource targets or when additional grants or foreign funds are generated,” according to the Department of Budget and Management (DBM).

Submitted to lawmakers on Monday, the National Expenditure Program (NEP) proposes P552.318 billion for SPF and P151.639 billion for unprogrammed appropriations.

A total of P440.805 billion was allocated for SPF under the 2021 national budget.

The breakdown of programs under SPF under the 2022 proposed budget is as follows:

-Budgetary support to government corporations: P157,805,663,000
-Allocation to local government units: P90,374,518,000
-National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Fund (calamity fund): P20,000,000,000
-Contingent Fund: P13,000,000,000
-Miscellaneous Personnel Benefits Fund: P38,193,939,000
-Pension and Gratuity Fund: P232,944,069,000

Unprogrammed appropriations

The procurement of COVID-19 vaccine booster shots tops the list of programs under the unprogrammed appropriations. The government has requested for standby authority to buy P45.367 billion worth of  booster doses.

The rest of the proposed allocations is as follows:

-Support for infrastructure projects and social programs: P27,690,671,000
-AFP modernization program: P5,000,000,000
-Budgetary support to government-owned and/or-controlled corporations: P24,953,019,000
-Support to foreign-assisted projects: P20,150,444,000
-Risk Management Program: P15,000,000,000
-Payment of arrears of the Land Transportation Office for information technology services: P2,000,000,000
-Refund of the service development fee for the right to develop the Nampeidai property in Tokyo, Japan: P210,579,000
-Prior years’ local government unit shares: P14,623,000
-Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas equity infusion pursuant to Republic Act 11211: P5,000,000,000

-Payment of personnel benefits: P3,707,937,000
-Shares of local government units from the fiscal year 2019 collection of excise taxes on locally manufactured Virginia-type cigarettes: P2,544,071,000

Revenue-dependent

Quarterly reports on the releases from the unprogrammed appropriations must be submitted by the DBM to the House Speaker, Senate President, the House appropriations committee, and the Senate finance committee, the NEP states.

During the House appropriations committee’s deliberation on the proposed P5.024-trillion national budget for 2022 on Thursday, the DBM said the unprogrammed funds would be the first to get affected if the revenue targets of the government will not be reached.

The government’s revenue projections are P2.88 trillion for 2021 and P3.29 trillion for 2022.

“Yes, theoretically because that means lesser collections would mean lesser amounts to generate under windfall revenues,” DBM officer-in-charge Tina Rose Canda said following a query by Marikina Representative Stella Luz Quimbo.

Quimbo then questioned the move of the DBM to put the P45-billion requirement for booster shots under unprogrammed appropriations.

Unprogrammed funds amounted to P176.315 billion for 2021.

Automatic appropriations

Automatic appropriations amount to P1.67 trillion or 33.3% of the P5.024 trillion budget.  This reflects an increase of P253.7 billion, or 17.9% compared to the 2021 budget.

Automatically appropriated expenditures do not require regular annual legislative approval by virtue of their nature and specific enabling laws, the DBM said.

The bulk of the increase went to the National Tax Allotment (formerly Internal
Revenue Allotment) which grew by 37.9%.

The proposed programmed automatic appropriations in next year's budget  include the following:

-National Tax Allotment (IRA): P959,000,000,000
-Bangsamoro Block Grant: P67,000,000,000
-Debt Service-Interest Payment: P512,600,000,000
-Retirement and Life Insurance Premiums: P60,000,000,000
-Net lending: P28,700,000,000
-Tax Expenditure Fund: P14,500,000,000
-Special Accounts in the General Fund: P31,100,000,000

—LDF, GMA News

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