Economic managers urged to release LGUs' 2022 budget amid COVID-19 surge

Local government units (LGUs) should start getting their increased budget under the 2022 General Appropriations Act to help them address the surge in COVID-19 cases, Senator Imee Marcos said on Monday.

“Our LGUs are the frontliners, and they urgently need the long-denied Mandanas-Garcia ruling realized in this year’s national budget,” Marcos said in a statement as she exhorted the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) and economic managers to download the allocation.

“We can start the New Year right by empowering LGUs to manage a persistent pandemic and natural calamities yet to come,” she added.

Under the 2018 Supreme Court decision on the Mandanas petition, 40 percent of all national taxes should be allotted to the LGUs, which is far from the practice of basing their share from the Bureau of Internal Revenue alone.

Marcos said LGUs are set to receive around P960 billion from the tax revenues, which is 40 percent of the P2.4 trillion tax base as computed by the Department of Finance (DOF).

The lawmaker underscored that COVID-19 infections are rising while the LGUs are waiting for the DOF's “justification of excluding tax revenues” amounting to P431 billion from its computed tax base.

“The DoF has yet to explain the various exclusions relating to BARMM, agricultural programs, fire protection, even sports equipment,” the senator added.

She further noted that the executive order issued last June will “whittle” the increased funding for the LGUS under the Mandanas ruling to pursue their development programs.

Under Executive Order 138, certain functions of the national government agencies will start to devolve to the LGUs in the next three years. However, Marcos said local officials are pleading for a longer period to absorb all the responsibilities that they will shoulder.

“Shouldering the costs of full devolution in such a short period will jeopardize the development programs that LGUs intend to pursue,” Marcos said.

“The assistance of national government will still be needed, especially in fourth to sixth class municipalities where public hospitals are not ready for a full transfer of functions,” she added.—LDF, GMA News