People-Centered Governance

We cannot be mere consumers of good governance, we must be participants; we must be co-creators.

— Indian writer Rohine Nilekani

WHILE the ongoing coronavirus pandemic continues to impact Philippine economy, President Ferdinand ‘Bonbon’ Marcos Jr. now face the challenge of revising the Duterte administration’s budget priorities for a more inclusive recovery.

The former senator took his oath today in his inauguration as the 17th president of the Republic at the National Library, which originally housed the Upper Housed of the Philippine Congress.

By now (or even before he decided to run for the presidency), Marcos Jr. must have realized that due to the current pandemic, the Philippines has suffered a 9.5 percent drop in its gross domestic product (GDP) for the year 2020—the biggest since the government started recording yearly output in 1946 or after the Second World War.

Moreover, lockdowns and restrictions caused by the pandemic have led to the temporary closure of 65.9 percent of firms and the permanent shutdown of 1.1 percent. These figures, according to the Asian Development Bank, were among the highest numbers in the Southeast Asian region.

So it is obvious that the son of the late former president Ferdinand Edralin Marcos Sr. has seen the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic which is so evident as our country’s unemployment rate has skyrocketed to 17.7 percent, while underemployment, or people who have jobs but not enough pay, rose to 18.9 percent as of April 2020.

Although the figures have slightly improved in recent weeks due to the reopening of businesses amid the lifting of strict quarantine restrictions, a special study conducted by the Institute for Leadership Excellence and Development (iLEAD) disclosed that the country was still far from recovering as improvements were still nowhere near pre-pandemic levels.

To further explain the situation, iLEAD’s executive director, Zy-za Nadine Suzara, emphasized that amid the grim economic figures brought by the pandemic, the Duterte administration had placed priorities mostly toward infrastructure spending, which the study found incapable of responding to the health crisis and helping businesses recover from the severe economic downturn.

So now our new president should be reminded that the public budget is really at the core of governance and in principle, it is the clearest expression of any government’s development agenda.

And because of this, the Marcos administration must now think about its budget priorities, hopefully focusing on boosting health systems, promoting inclusive recovery, implementing structural reforms and re-establishing participatory mechanisms to ensure transparency in governance and likewise in the implementation of government projects.

Our 17th president has vowed continuity and this, we believe, include his predecessor’s ‘Build Build Build’ infrastructure program, but this has actually taken upon so much fiscal space despite the fact that the said program was found to be not the most effective strategy for our country’s health and economic recovery.

At the height of the pandemic, the DPWH emerged as the top recipient department (and continues to do so) while the Department of Health (DoH), along with other critical frontline government agencies which are supposed to provide economic aid and fiscal stimulus, trailed behind the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) and Department of National Defense (DND).

Data from the 2022 enacted national budget by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM), DPWH received a PhP786.6 billion allocation as compared to the health department which only received less than half of the figure, or PhP268.4 billion.

Yes the DoH budget increased by PhP22.2 billion or 16.8 percent, but the increase largely went to the Health Facilities Enhancement Program and Human Resources for Health. Meanwhile, vaccine funds have once again been parked under ‘unprogrammed’ appropriations and PhP45.4 billion allotted for the procurement of vaccines will again be financed through loans despite projected revenues amounting to PhP3.3 trillion.

And desperately in need of sufficient funding are efforts for contact tracing as well budget for special risk allowances of health care workers and other frontliners, aside from allocation to expand Covid-19 testing in the country.

It’s unfortunate that there were trade-offs in the 2022 national budget that took place in the final stretch of budget legislation. Basically, this could be blamed on patronage politics that really eclipsed any initiative for people-centered economic recovery.

Sad to say, what we saw in the 2022 General Appropriations Act (GAA) are continued insistence on infrastructure development, high allocations for ‘pork’ (making it definitely an election budget), bloated unprogrammed appropriations leaving education, health and economic recovery programs without guaranteed funding and a commanding share for military and law enforcement.  

The Duterte administration’s philosophy, we can say, was simply putting as many infrastructure into the national budget and never mind about the allocations for economic aid or fiscal stimulus for businesses that suffered losses or inadvertently closed shop.

So there is a desperate need for the newly elected Marcos administration to rethink the current fiscal policy and ensure an inclusive and sustainable economic recovery. There are still ways to use the national budget to support this and in order to do so, Marcos Jr. must reassess and recast the current set of priorities towards one that will boost health systems and promote inclusive economic recovery

Structural reforms must likewise be instituted to increase the capacity of government agencies to respond to crisis even as open and participatory mechanisms are set in place to ensure transparency and accountability in the procurement and use of Covid-19 funds.

Furthermore, the importance of the role of civil society in a people-centered budgeting process must be given recognition because many of these civil society organizations are clear about their policy and political agenda.

With these in mind and as a final advice, resulting efforts by the new Marcos government should be people-centered, sustainable, and globally competitive.

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