Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto welcomed the administration’s request for standby authority to buy as much as P45.4 billion worth of vaccine booster shots, should the same be needed next year.
Recto said the amount is part of the P151.6 billion in unprogrammed funds in the proposed 2022 national budget.
Unprogrammed appropriations are over and above the total amount for new appropriations in the national budget.
Partaking the nature of conditional expenditures, items in the unprogrammed appropriations will be funded by new or excess revenue collections or approved loans.
Recto explained that whether an item is in the programmed or unprogrammed portion of the General Appropriations Act, “the authority to spend is granted by Congress, subject to conditions.”
“Ang bottomline ay may authority na bumili ng vaccine booster shots at ang pangkalahatang halaga ay tukoy sa national budget,” he said.
The P45.4 billion fund for booster shots is on top of the P30 billion earmarked for “drugs, medicines, vaccines” in the P157 billion Department of Health budget for 2022, Recto said.
Recto, however, admitted that Congress retains the right to move a portion or the entire proposed appropriations for booster shots to the programmed appropriations.
“But that is easier said than done, because you will have to displace projects and programs worth P45.4 billion to create the budget space for booster shots,” he said.
He said the pandemic’s “huge footprint” on the 2022 national budget proves that the “micro COVID virus” is the biggest macroeconomic assumption of next year’s spending program.
“The behavior of the virus, the direction the pandemic is heading, affects how we spend public funds,” Recto said.
Source: Latest Politics News Today (Politics.com.ph)
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