DBM pushes 5% cap on unprogrammed funds in budget

The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) is proposing to institutionalize the agency's practice of including a maximum threshold for unprogrammed funds.

- By MARCO LUIS BEECH

Critics see unprogrammed appropriations as another version of the pork barrel.

Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman said the DBM's legislative agenda includes putting a five-percent cap on unprogrammed funds of the proposed National Expenditure Program (NEP).

"Actually, those are international guidelines, when I went to the International Monetary Fund World Bank three years ago. We were scared as unprogrammed allocations are getting big," she said.

"I asked them what the best practice is and they said five percent. Maybe that's what the Department of Finance can do," she added.

The nearly P250 billion unprogrammed fund for next year is 3.7 percent of the country's proposed P6.793-trillion budget for 2026.

The proposed unprogrammed funds of the national government is slashed by nearly 68.8 percent from this year's level.

The budget document showed that the proposed unprogrammed funds for this year is at P249.99 billion, equivalent to a P113.44-billion reduction from this year's outlay.

Breakdown of the proposed allocation goes mostly to support the maintenance and other operating expense of foreign assisted projects at P97.3 billion, or almost 39 percent of the total fund.

Explaining the high budget on foreign projects, Pangandaman said some projects still wait for a "perfected agreement" and an approval from the Department of Economy, Planning and Development, thus this is included in the unprogrammed and not in programmed allocation.

This is followed by strengthening assistance for government infrastructure and social programs at P80.8 billion and revised Armed Forces of the Philippines modernization program fund at P50 billion.

Meanwhile, budgetary support to government-owned or controlled corporations (GOCCs) is at P6.89 billion and public health emergency benefits and allowances for health care and non-health care workers at P6.7 billion.