PRESS STATEMENT
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The volume of the current fiscal deficit is manageable according to impartial assessments.

There is no justification for declaring a fiscal crisis which may unduly scare away investors.

Reducing the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) may be sending the wrong signal even as it is a cosmetic solution to the deficit because any savings would be too miniscule to make a dent on the deficit.

President Noynoy Aquino’s statement that the PDAF will be retained “as a concept” is welcome but his colatilla that the “figures would be different” is ambivalent because this could result to a reduction of amounts which is akin to the ill-advised proposal to slash the PDAF.

There is no need to provide a menu for the utilization of the PDAF as intimated by the President because ever since there has been a restricted menu for its availment and implementation.