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Duterte cuts public services, favors security needs

Administration's 'budget of change' threatens to punish those most in need
Duterte cuts public services, favors security needs

The Philippine government has slashed health funds for 2018, including those for the prevention of infectious diseases. (Photo by Karl Romano)

Published: August 22, 2017 10:45 AM GMT
Updated: August 22, 2017 10:46 AM GMT

The Philippine government has slashed the 2018 budget for direct public services in health, housing and social welfare, moving funds to beef up the country's security services and implement a massive infrastructure program.

Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno said most affected agencies showed under spending in past years, a claim disputed by lawmakers.

Antonio Tinio, a lawmaker for a teachers' party, said the social welfare agency's capital outlay for 2018 decreased from $7.2 million in 2017 to only $600,000.

 The budget cut threatens 71 shelters for abandoned senior citizens, orphans and children at risk of conflict with the law, and victims of trafficking, Tinio said.

A priest involved in anti-corruption campaigns warned of a return to the practice of awarding agencies lump sums that hamper auditing efforts.

Sacred Heart Father Benjamin Alforque said Congress rejected the appointment of Social Welfare Secretary Judy Taguiwalo this month after "she refused their demand to tinker with the flow of aid, including cash." The bulk of the department's budget next year goes to cash transfers, the main target of the lawmakers who ousted the agency head, Tinio said.

Bayan Muna, a leftist political party, said more than a quarter of operating funds for 66 regional and special state hospitals have disappeared.

On the housing front, a think tank said the combined 2018 budget of six agencies dropped from $296 million to only $88 million, affecting 1.5 million informal settler families.

In contrast, the executive department added $400 million to the national police budget, mostly for intelligence funds often beyond the reach of state auditors.

Lawmakers, outraged over the killing of a teenager caught up in a police anti-drug blitz last week, threatened to waylay those funds, demanding probe results for more than 12,000 fatalities in the first year of Duterte's rule.

 

Hospitals for the poor

The biggest research institute for tropical medicine and four regional hospitals in some of the country's poorest regions saw huge budget drops.

Bayan Muna said the budget for disease surveillance was slashed by half. More than half of the budget for existing public health threats like malaria and schistosomiasis disappeared. Funds for the prevention and control of infectious diseases like HIV-AIDS, food and water borne diseases and dengue, which killed more 1,000 Filipinos last year, decreased 14 percent.

The service monitoring food and health products lost 70 percent of its budget. The Food and Drug Administration lost its entire maintenance and other operating expenses, leaving it only with income from licensing, registration, and other related regulatory fees.

Health Secretary Paulyn Jean Rosell Ubial told lawmakers the budget department rejected the agency's original proposal, which was based on actual hospital occupancy rates. They were given a budget based on funds spent in 2016, she added.

Bayan Muna representative Carlos Zarate said affected hospitals are already operating beyond capacity by as much as 200 percent and have reported deficits in the last four years.

 

Shelter hopes dashed

A report by Ibon Foundation said the Duterte government reduced 2018 housing funds by more than 70 percent.

The National Housing Authority, which builds shelters for the poor, suffered an 82 percent drop from $254 million to only $44 million.

Of its remaining budget, 72 percent is reserved for housing of soldiers and police; barely a quarter will go to relocation of informal settlers affected by big infrastructure projects.

The new budget ignores 1.5 million informal settlers, a third from the national capital, Ibon said. Early this year, members of the urban poor group Kadamay, occupied a thousand empty, decaying homes rejected by military and police recipients due to substandard construction.

Father Pete Montallana, lead convener of the Sikap Laya, Inc., which ministers to the urban poor, said Duterte has reneged on his campaign pledge and warned of a backlash from the millions of poor who voted him to office last year.

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