‘Earmarking’ to
solve dilemma of P500-B unfunded laws – Chiz
By Office of Senator Chiz
Escudero
March 18, 2013
PASAY CITY – Senator Chiz
Escudero wants closer coordination between the executive and the
legislative branches of government in the crafting of relevant laws as
he revealed that P500-billion worth of laws remain dormant because of
the absence of government funding.
Escudero said a solution to
this perennial problem of law creation and funding would be the
earmarking of funds on laws coming out of the legislative mill.
He cited as example the
assigning of funds raised from the sin tax amendment law or income
coming from state corporations such as those raised from gaming
operations of the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor) to
particular expenses.
For instance, under Pagcor’s
charter, five percent of the state gaming firm’s income is earmarked
for the Philippine Sports Commission.
Earmarking would be a good
way of ensuring that laws serve the purpose for which these were
created since the funding does not need to pass through the Department
of Budget and Management (DBM) or the need for funds to first go to
the national treasury before these are released to a particular
undertaking.
Escudero said among these
unfunded laws is one which seeks to improve the welfare of persons
with disabilities (PWD).
“The PWD law has a worthy
cause but it is effectively not implemented even among government
offices because it was not funded,” the reelectionist senator said.
The situation is similar to
asking which comes first, the chicken or the egg, Escudero said, and
noted that it is the responsibility of Congress to craft laws but it
is the Executive’s task to allocate the budget to implement laws.
“If Congress becomes remiss
on the enactment of laws, the government will not have any
authorization for programs it espouses but on the contrary, the
enactment of a law becomes meaningless if there is no budget for it,”
Escudero said.
He said that in the current
15th Congress, some 70 bills were enacted, creating about 300 courts
which did not have funding.
“If Congress did not pass
the bills, the Department of Budget and Management will not have
authority to allocate funding for the new courts in the budget, so
it’s a cat and mouse game,” Escudero said.
Ensuring that laws and
funding match is a joint responsibility of government, meaning the
Congress and the executive branch itself, he added.
“Under PD 1177, the
President has powers over the budget to decide which items to fund and
which items not to fund. We do not have a provision in the
Constitution which requires laws to be funded on a first-come,
first-served basis,” Escudero said.
“Nobody should be lulled by
the comfort of believing that simply because we amend the law and say
that funding should be automatically appropriated, it will already be
released by the DBM,” he added.
Escudero explained that the
only items that are automatically appropriated would be debt servicing
and the Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA) under the Local Government
Code and the budget for constitutional commissions.