Senate Minority Leader Ralph Recto is pushing for a minimum 10 percent cut in the bureaucracy’s cellphone, electricity, travel, gasoline, advertising, and other non-essential expenses, which he said would free billions for health and other social services.

Recto manifested this several times in the course of this week’s Senate debates on the 2017 P3.35 trillion national budget, during which many funding gaps in critical services for the poor were discovered by senators from both sides of the aisle.

Recto said the “budget peso” can still be stretched by converting “office overhead into medicines, school lunches, and other things poor people and communities need.”

He cited next year’s proposed P13.8 billion outlay for water, lighting and electricity which he said could “withstand” a 10 percent cut without “curtailing service and efficiency.”

By his calculation, the P1.38 billion saved would be able to fund the construction of 1,300 classrooms.

Another example of an expenditure which can be reduced is the government’s travelling expense, which has been budgeted P17.7 billion for next year.

Recto recalled that President Duterte had ordered a stop in unnecessary lakbay arals. “To implement this, we should cut the travel budget by 10 percent, and there is no shortage of programs the savings can be rechanneled to.”

He said “travel’s cousin, which is training” should be pared down too, citing the fact that taxpayer-funded trainings in resorts and hotels eat up a large chunk of government funds.

The reason why money is poured into travel and training is that these provide the fastest way to utilize funds, Recto explained.

“So when an agency is under pressure to improve its fund absorption capacity, training provides the convenient fast-track. But training need not be in hotels. It can be in-house or in state colleges that offer HRM courses which means they have the manpower and facilities,” he said.

For 2017, some P30.6 billion is earmarked for training and scholarships. “Retain the money for scholarships, kasi ito yung para sa mga estudyante, but reduce the allocation for training,” Recto said.

The P9.6 billion budget for communications, which cover cellphone, landline, Internet and postage, is another prime candidate for whittling down.

“Slash it by P1 billion, and this will be a big addition to the P7 billion medicine budget of the Health department for 2017,” Recto said.

Recto said the P26.5 billion for consultants and outsourced jobs, booked under “professional services,” can also be subjected to downsizing “in a manner that will not cause the termination of contracts of good, skilled and technical people.”

One big-ticket item in the 2017 budget which can be “subjected to a slimming regimen,” is the P84.1 billion for supplies and materials,” Recto pointed out.

“Yung office supplies component nito, pwedeng bawasan. Yung gas, oil, lubricants na at least P6 billion, di hamak na pwedeng bawasan din, basta huwag isama ang ambulances, patrol cars,” he said.

“I have to emphasize this distinction because the P84.1 billion includes the budget for textbooks and medicines. Huwag nating galawin ‘yan. They’re off-limits. So the object of targeted reduction are the non-essential supplies,” Recto said.

He said “representation expenses” granted to upper-echelon government officials should be reduced too. For 2017, P11.7 billion will be set aside for representation bills of top bureaucrats.

Operating overhead of state offices form part of the P1.21 trillion Maintenance and Other Operating Expenses (MOOE) proposed for 2017.

But of this amount, only P325 billion can be explored for reduction as financial subsidies to local governments, like the P486 billion Internal Revenue Allotment, and CCT and other social protection costs of about P115 billion “are no-cut zones and should be kept intact,” Recto said.

“Kaya kung P20 billion ang matitipid sa overhead, ang dami nang pwedeng mapondohan nito. Gamot, libro, tulong sa mahihirap,” he said.

According to Recto, the reduction can be done outright by approving a lower amount for selected MOOE items, “but the best way is through a budget provision stating that release of 10 percent of the allocation be placed on hold, or in the least-priority, last-to-release items.”

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