THE DUTERTE regime’s P3.757 trillion budget proposal for 2019 contained significant cuts for social services while alloting huge chunks of funds for its suppression campaigns.
Overall, funds for economic and social services were cut by P2.18 billion and P1.2 billion, respectively. Among the budget losers are the Department of Education (P54.9 billion), Department of Agrarian Reform (P1.7 billion), Department of Agriculture (P5.9 billion), and the National Housing Authority (P2.9 billion).
Despite passage of the reactionary free education law which purportedly makes education in state schools free, 63 out of 114 state universities and colleges actually suffered budget cuts for 2019.
Not a cent was appropriated for the construction of new housing units and new facilities for public hospitals.
Meanwhile, budget for the Department of National Defense rose by 35%. The DND was allocated a budget of P183.4 billion, which includes P25 billion for the Revised AFP Modernization Program for arms procurement; and P82 billion for the operations of Philippine Army battalions.
Funding for the Department of Interior and Local Government also rose by 31%, reaching P225.6 billion for 2019. This includes the P151.7 billion appropriation for the PNP Crime Prevention and Suppression Program, which the fascist police will clearly use to intensify its killings, repression and fascist violence.
Duterte’s budget is gleaming with the amount of pork barrel he appropriated for himself and to ingratiate legislators. In fact, a peso in every three pesos of reactionary state’s proposed 2019 budget is pork barrel. More than a third, or P1.69 trillion, was appropriated as “special purpose funds.” This includes the P2.86 billion or 9% increase in the Local Government Support Fund, and P400 million in the Calamity Fund.
During the congressional budget hearings, rifts among the reactionary classes was evident as squabbles on how they want to divide the pork barrel were ignited. Committee on Appropriations Chairman Karlo Nograles and House Speaker Gloria Arroyo, in particular, argued over how to use the P55-billion fund which questionably slipped in the Department of Public Works and Highways budget. Nograles argued that Duterte personally ordered that the funds be left untouched. According to Makabayan, Duterte will surely use the budget for his own ends and to fund the campaigns of his candidates in the forthcoming 2019 elections.
To fund this budget, the reactionary government will certainly have to borrow billions from local and foreign financal institutions. The regime is set to borrow up to P624.4 billion for its 2019 budget. This will raise the country’s debt per capita ratio from an P68,773 this year to P74,957 in 2019.