The inclusion in the President’s second weekly report to the Joint Congressional Oversight Committee created under the “Bayanihan Act” of the projected discontinuance and reallocation for the COVID-19 response of P158.554-billion worth of capital outlays raises a number of fundamental problems and overriding issues, namely:

1. It negates the income-generating reality of infrastructure projects particularly for workers in the grassroots;

2. The resumption of all infrastructure projects after the lockdown is an economic stimulus;

3. Infrastructure development is the engine of growth;

4. Investors, both foreign and local, consider the adequacy of infrastructure as a major incentive for investment;

5. The discontinuance and reallocation of appropriated projects in the General Appropriations Act (GAA) in order to generate forced or contrived savings have been outlawed by the Supreme Court in Araullo vs. Aquino which declared the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) and the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) as unconstitutional; and

6. Ample savings can be sourced instead from the following, among others:

   1. Unutilized Maintenance and Other Operating Expenses (MOOE) during the lockdown;

   2. Drastic reduction of foreign travel, trainings and seminars, and purchases of non-essential office equipment and other expenditures under MOOE;

   3. A 10% across the board reduction of MOOE in all departments and agencies to excise budgetary fat;

   4. Suspension of procurement of military hardware and IT equipment and facilities;

   5. Reduction of budgetary support to government corporations;

   6. Suspension of the creation of new government positions, including additional diplomatic and consular posts;

   7. Suspension of the establishment of new executive departments;

   8. Scrapping of procurement of professional services and hiring of consultants;

   9. Suspension of agencies’ subscription and advertisements; and

   10. Reduction of intelligence and confidential funds.

EDCEL C. LAGMAN