By PRINCE GOLEZ
Manila Reporter
MANILA — Senate will tackle the P2.606-trillion 2015 national budget starting Aug. 19, Senate President Franklin Drilon said.
It already has a copy of the General Appropriations Bill, the Ilonggo senator said.
Social services will get the lion’s share of the budget, he said.
“’Yong sa Department of Education (DepEd) at Department of Health (DOH), PhilHealth at Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), yaan po ay umaabot halos kalahati ng budget natin, nasa malapit sa P1 trillion.”
DepEd will get P365 billion, while DOH and DSWD will be allocated with P102 billion and P109 billion, respectively.
Appropriations for the Education department will be used to build 33,000 new classrooms and repair about 9,000 disaster-destroyed classrooms, Drilon said.
The Health department’s budget was increased by P11 billion because about 1,500 health centers and public hospitals need to be repaired, he said.
PhilHealth, which is under DOH, will be appropriated P35 billion for the enrollment of 15 million poor Filipinos, he said.
Meanwhile, the Social Welfare department’s budget was also increased by P25 billion for the continuous implementation of the conditional cash transfer (CCT) program for more than four million Filipinos, Drilon said.
However, Sen. Francis Escudero, Senate finance committee chair, said he does not think the supposed poverty-alleviation program is effective.
“Mas nais ko, sa simpleng pananalita, turuan pa ring mangisda ang ating kababayan kaysa sa simpleng bigyan lamang sila ng isda,” said Escudero, who vowed to look into the impact of CCT./PN
