Officials and staff of national government agencies attended the forum on the Budget Reform Bill conducted by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) on July 18, 19, and 21.
Held at the Bayleaf Hotel in Intramuros, the forum aims to introduce the Budget Reform Program to the government agencies and explain its salient features and implications to the budget operations.
The event included an open forum and synthesis to allow the participating agencies to give feedback on the Budget Reform Bill, raise questions or concerns, and immediately get a response from the DBM.
The Budget Reform Bill is the result of a series of consultations with the financial management agencies, the Commission on Audit (COA), the Department of Finance (DOF), the Bureau of Treasury (BTr), and the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA). The Bill was developed to address budgeting difficulties such as the fragmented financial reporting among BTr, COA, DBM, and NEDA, as well as underspending due to “structural weakness within National Government Agencies and Government-Owned and -Controlled Corporations (GOCCs).”
In his welcome remarks, DBM Secretary Benjamin E. Diokno stressed, “It is clear that our government needs major changes in our budgeting system, specifically, modifications that will improve the budget process as well as enforce discipline in the implementation of the budget by the spending agencies.”
The Budget Reform Bill has gained the support of a number of legislators including Congressmen Karlo and Jericho Nograles, who filed the bill in the House of Representatives on May 9, 2017, and Senator Loren Legarda, who also filed the same bill in the Senate on May 11, 2017. The bill is up for committee deliberations at the House of Representatives. Meanwhile, the first Senate hearing for the Budget Reform Bill is expected on the first week of August this year.
On July 13, the Budget Reform Bill was endorsed by the Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council or LEDAC Executive Committee as one of the 13 priority bills. Included also in this list are the Government Rightsizing Bill and the National ID System, both initiated by the DBM.
The priority bills will be presented to President Duterte for approval and certification as urgent, which means that the government targets to pass them into law this year.
In closing his welcome remarks, Secretary Diokno encouraged the present agencies to actively participate in the open forum and expressed that their feedback is valuable to how the DBM can improve the bill and execute a smooth transition from the old system to the new one.
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For more information on the Budget Reform Bill, visit www.dbm.gov.ph, or follow @DBMgovph on Facebook and Twitter for regular updates.
