JV Ejercito: Prioritize infra dev’t, higher budget for LGUs in 2023 nat’l budget
September 17, 2022
Senator Joseph Victor “JV” Ejercito said
Congress should prioritize infrastructure development and increasing
allocations for local government units (LGUs) as it deliberates on the 2023
national budget.
As a staunch advocate of infrastructure
development, Ejercito lauded the current administration for recognizing public
infrastructure, especially railways, as a crucial component of the country’s
post-pandemic economic recovery.
“As an advocate of infrastructure development,
specifically the improvement and rehabilitation of our railways sector, I am
delighted to know that this administration now prioritizes this sector. For the
longest time the railway sector is being disregarded and neglected,” he said.
“The boost in public infrastructure spending
will potentially boost the national economy, specifically the generation of
additional jobs and increasing income. This is the multiplier effect of
increased public infrastructure spending,” he added.
He cited the budget increase for the railway
sector from this fiscal year’s P23.2 billion to the proposed P114 billion for
2023, calling it a “breakthrough.”
In July, the lawmaker from San Juan filed
Senate Bill No. 158, which seeks to create and institutionalize a comprehensive
infrastructure development master plan.
The plan would cover several areas of
priority, such as transportation and logistics, energy, water resources,
information and communications technology, social infrastructure,
agri-fisheries modernization and food logistics, and asset preservation and maintenance
strategies.
Aside from infrastructure development,
Ejercito said Congress should increase the budget for LGUs for the next fiscal
years given that the share of local governments in the country’s national tax
allocations went down significantly due to lower tax collections in 2020, the
first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.
He said this move will cushion the effects of
the initial implementation of the Supreme Court’s Mandanas-Garcia ruling and
improve service delivery at the local level.
“Since delivery of services like health and
social services will also be devolved to our LGUs, for sure, this will be a big
challenge to them on how to perform all the devolved functions for next year,”
Ejercito said.
“The increase in the LGUs’ budget should be
prioritized because the LGUs are the front liners in providing services to our
kababayans. We hope to find a way to increase their budget during the
deliberations,” he added.
Among Ejercito’s priority bills for the 19th
Congress is Senate Bill No. 394, which seeks to amend the Local Government Code
of 1991 and increase the share of LGUs in national taxes to 50 percent.
For these sectors to be given adequate
funding, Ejercito said Congress should reallocate funds from government
agencies with a low budget absorption capacity.
“We have been studying the budget and we saw
increases in the budget of agencies which posted low absorptive capacity. This
means that they were unable to maximize the use of their budget, yet there is
an increase for next year,” he said.
“If ever there will be funds to be reallocated, I
think that this will come from these agencies or departments,” he added.
