Sotto calls claims Duterte cut disaster risk reduction budget ‘idiotic’

During the Monday's Senate budget debates on the proposed P4.5 trillion national budget for 2021, Senate President Vicente Sotto III called claims made on social media that President Rodrigo Duterte had cut the government's disaster risk reduction budget "idiotic."

"Was there a budget cut last year by the President for risk reduction? Does NEDA (National Economic and Development Authority) know about that or DBM (Department of Budget and Management)? Was there a risk reduction budget cut by the President last year?" Sotto asked Senate Finance Committee chairperson Sonny Angara.

"There was no cut by the Senate and by the President. There was a cut by the other house," Angara responded.

"Alright. Because there's this idiotic, silly post on Facebook or Twitter by some, forgive me for the word, some idiot," said Sotto, making no further elaborations.

Based on data from the Department of Budget and Management the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Fund or the Calamity Fund was decreased to P16 billion in 2020 from P20 billion in 2019.

For next year, Angara said the Calamity Fund and the Quick Response Funds combined could amount to at least P26 billion.

Senator Grace Poe had earlier filed a bill seeking to set aside at least three percent of all estimated regular government revenues for the NDRRM fund every year, noting that the NDRRM fund has been slashed from P38.9 billion in 2016 to P15.8 billion in 2017.

Senator Francis Pangilinan also called for the revival of Project NOAH (Nationwide Operational Assessment of Hazard), which the Duterte Administration defunded in 2017.

Duterte meanwhile attributed the stronger typhoons and severe flooding to climate change.

The series of tropical cyclones that entered the Philippines in the past weeks, Typhoon Ulysses being the latest, affected thousands of Filipino families throughout Luzon amid the COVID-19 pandemic. — DVM, GMA News