By Joyce P. Pañares

PRESIDENT Arroyo has signed into law the national government’s P1.414-trillion budget, but vetoed a congressional insertion allowing the Executive to increase or decrease appropriations for debt payments.

“What was actually vetoed was the concept of debt service being appropriated by the President. It is not up to the President to decide whether to reduce or increase debt servicing because our law provides that it is automatically appropriated,” Budget Secretary Rolando Andaya Jr. said.

He said requiring the Executive to appropriate money for debt payments would make such funds a line item in the budget that could be changed arbitrarily, as opposed to automatic appropriation that could not be increased or decreased.

But the President did not veto the P50 billion that Congress had slashed from its debt servicing budget. The government will now have to try to work with the P252.6 billion allocated for loan payments in the 2009 budget.

“We are adopting P252 billion as the initial number for us to be able to stay within the target deficit of P177.2 billion,” Andaya said.

“We agree with this initial amount for interest payments, but it can go higher or lower depending on the availability of funds.”

The law, Republic Act 9524, is P188 billion higher than last year’s P1.226-billion budget.

Andaya said the increase was meant to spur the economy in the face of the global economic crisis.

The Education Department received the biggest allocation of P158.2 billion followed by the Public Works Department with P130 billion.

The Interior Department, which includes the National Police, received P63 billion.

The other top recipients were the Defense Department (P56.5 billion), Agriculture Department (P41.2 billion), Health Department (P27.9billion), Transportation Department (P25 billion), state universities and colleges (P22.8 billion), Agrarian Reform Department (P13.1 billion) and the Judiciary (P12.6 billion).

The Social Welfare Department received P10.62 billion, up 119 percent from last year’s, and the Health Department was given P27.9 billion.

“We have also increased the Foreign Affairs Department’s budget by P2.4 billion to P12.6 billion for it to better undertake economic diplomacy and provide succor to overseas Filipino workers in distress,” Andaya said.

The outlay also provided the Commission on Elections with P5.44 billion for the May 2010 polls, and on top of the P11.3-billion poll automation fund.

About P18.6 billion was allocated for a 10-percent increase in the basic pay of one million state workers.