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| Editorial photo from Daily Tribune (ctto) |
An editorial article by the Daily Tribune alleged Liberal Party of another scam out of the Bottom-up Budgeting (BuB) scheme of former President Noynoy Aquino where billions of public funds were spent.
"Another sinister creation of the Liberal Party (LP) that had slipped detection thus far, similar to the recent tons of meth or shabu that got through the Bureau of Customs, was the Bottom-up Budgeting (BuB) of former President Noynoy Aquino where billions of pesos of public funds were spent." the author started off
Funds for LGU officials
BuB was said to be created as a reform measure to "empower communities" allegedly initiated by Aquino's former budget secretary and chief LP strategist Butch Abad.
The funds released for BuB, according to the article, was "actually used to line the pockets of local officials supporting the yellow administration."
"Abad’s Department of Budget and Management released some P1.278 billion to fund projects under the BuB program to 133 local government units (LGU) in 2015 that did not pass the requirements under the budget law, according to the Commission on Audit." the author, TEB wrote
The author added, that out of "the 14,300 projects with funding allocation amounting to P20.9 billion, 800 projects with funding allocation of P1.278 billion were implemented by 133 LGU that are not part of the 2014 Good Financial Housekeeping Passers and Passers of After Assessment Compliance (as of 29 February 2016), according to a CoA report."
"Had President Rody Duterte failed to stop the yellow rampage, Abad would have institutionalized the BuB down to the barangay level." the article stated
Allegedly, before the end of Aquino's term, Abad conceptualized a P42 billion Barangay BuB wherein each of the 42,036 barangays of the country were entitled to P1 million - which could have succeeded had LP bet Mar Roxas won the presidency.*
"Under Abad’s proposed expanded BuB, the first 12,000 barangays will receive funding from the national government in 2017 and would be released through the Department of the Interior and Local Government, the agency which Roxas used to head." the article stated
If in one his campaign speeches, Roxas promised to allot more funds for the LGUs which was called "BuB pa more" if he is elected as president.
“If the question is, do we have the money or is this just an empty promise? The answer is no, because we have P800 billion (from capital outlay in 2016) and if we will continue the Daang Matuwid, we will get the P100 billion out of the P800 billion and directly download it to our communities and our barangays,” quoting from the article, is what Roxas said.
'Wish list'
Under his proposed "BuB pa more" program, each of 1, 490 towns in the country and its 144 cities will received a project allocation of P1, 000 for every resident.
Under BuB, heads from the LGUs were asked to come up with a "wish list" of projects worth P15 million each.
Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno has once said that the BuB scheme was some kind of a political tool.
The Tribune author said that CoA should conduct a probe on the BuB just like the audit made for Aquino's Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF).
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