Senators clueless on P1 B family planning budget cut - Pia Cayetano

Senator Pia Cayetano has debunked the claim  that senators were informed about the P1 billion budget cut from the family planning funds.

“This was not the third reading version we passed in the Senate, and neither was this major cut on reproductive health, which is a very important part of health care, revealed to us when we voted on the bicameral report,” Cayetano said in a statement on Monday.

Senator Loren Legarda, who heads the Senate Committee on Finance, on Friday said that all information about the 2016 national budget were available to both houses of Congress before it was enacted into law.

Legarda added that, “All senators were given a copy of the bicameral conference committee report before they voted to ratify. The first page of the report shows both the increases and the decreases in the budget of all agencies including the Department of Health [DOH]."

Cayetano, however, explained that what was reflected in the bicam report that the senators approved was a P1-billion cut in the special provision on “purchase and allocation of drugs, medicines and vaccines.”

She added that there was no mention of any cuts in the line item budget for family planning.

“But in the final version that is reflected now in the GAA [General Appropriations Act], there is a line item for family planning that shows a P1 billion reduction. This was never reported to us,” she said.

Cayetano also said that the details of the P1-billion cut were only made known after President Benigno Aquino III signed the GAA on December 28, 2015 and after the DOH discovered the reduction.

“Naglolokohan tayo dito when our finance committee headed by Senator Loren Legarda can submit a bicam report to senators that do not show the significant changes made. That is unethical and unacceptable,” she also said.

Health Secretary Janette Garin first revealed the budget cut in a television interview saying it will be a challenge to implement family planning programs in 2016 because the allocation for contraceptives was cut from the DOH’s 2016 budget.

The allocation for Family Health and Responsible Parenting (FHRP) in the GAA for 2016 is P2,275,078,000, down from P3,274,078,000 in 2015.

In a statement sent to GMA News Online, Legarda explained that some of the funds removed from FHRP will go to Department of National Defense for upgrading of air assets and other agencies.

“A cut in the budget does not mean less support for a program. We also see the need to increase funds of other agencies for equally important programs. We all want our laws and programs to be funded, thus, the House and the Senate deliberate on the budget and make the necessary adjustments as we see fit," she said.

"We reduce the budget of some programs to allow for the improvement of other programs. That is why we have to go through this cycle of budget deliberations every year,” she added.  — BAP, GMA News