POVERTY-FIGHTING BUDGET SIGNED / AQUINO URGED TO REVEAL OWN ANTI-POVERTY PROGRAM
MANILA, DECEMBER 29, 2010 (SINGAPORE PRESS) AFP - Philippine president Benigno Aquino signed a massive 1.645 trillion peso budget which he said was designed to fight poverty and spur development.
President Benigno Aquino signed into law on Monday a massive 1.645 trillion-peso (S$48.6 billion) budget for 2011 which he said was designed to fight poverty and spur development.
The 2011 budget, which is 6.8 per cent higher than last year, focuses on social programmes and includes a controversial provision for 21 billion pesos in cash handouts to selected poor families, officials said.
'This budget demonstrates our commitment to solving the problems of our people at the soonest time. This alleviates the burdens especially of the most disadvantaged,' said Mr Aquino at the signing ceremony.
Budget Secretary Florencio Abad said that 34.1 per cent of the budget - the single largest allocation - would go to social services, showing the importance Mr Aquino gives to helping the disadvantaged in this largely-impoverished country.
'The reform budget of 2011 puts our poor countrymen first. This budget puts into pesos the Aquino government's unabashed bias for the poor,' he told reporters.
Mr Abad also stressed that the budget contained special provisions to ensure it would be highly transparent, in line with Mr Aquino's promise to fight corruption at all levels. 'These general and special provisions require us to disclose key information on budgetary appropriations and releases using new information technology,' he said. -- AFP
FROM THE DAILY INQUIRER
AQUINO PRESSED TO REVEAL HIS OWN ANTI-POVERTY PROGRAM By Kristine L. Alave Philippine Daily Inquirer
It's all talk.
Following the signing of a $434-million grant from the United States to alleviate poverty in the country, the militant group Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) pressed President Benigno Aquino III to reveal his own antipoverty program.
The poverty alleviation program that Mr. Aquino has so far announced consists of the continuation of the conditional cash transfer (CCT) initiated by the Arroyo administration, Bayan said.
"Despite all the anticorruption and antipoverty rhetoric from the President, the current government's so-called antipoverty program does not seem to be clear. Its blueprint for addressing poverty seems similar to the previous government. We're approaching the 100-day mark of his administration but there is still no substantial program that will address poverty," said Renato M. Reyes Jr., Bayan secretary general.
Reyes said that Mr. Aquino's centerpiece antipoverty program seemed to be nothing more than ex-President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's CCT.
"This dole system has not made a dent on poverty over the past years, yet it will be receiving more funding this year," he said.
The Aquino administration announced it was expanding this year the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps), which started in 2008 under the Arroyo administration, with the help of the Asian Development Bank.
The program has helped about 900,000 families with monthly cash grants of up to P1,400 each. The number of beneficiaries is expected to reach 2.3 million by 2011.
"The Aquino [administration] should address poverty through genuine land reform, development of the economy to serve domestic needs, genuine national industrialization and a departure from neoliberal economic policies. These are long-term solutions that need to be undertaken to arrest the worsening trend of poverty and hunger in the country," Reyes said.
Aquino and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday signed a $434-million grant from the Millennium Challenge Corp. (MCC) to fund infrastructure and rural development programs in the Philippines.
Bayan warned that the grant "was not without conditionalities that may impact negatively on the Philippines."
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