The national government should instruct all of its agencies to save five percent of their budget to raise P250 billion that can be used as aid, suggested Taguig-Pateros 1st district Representative Alan Peter Cayetano on Monday.
He made the remarks as the government pushes on with distributing P200 aid to poor Filipino families amid the pandemic and oil price hikes, an amount criticized by some lawmakers as insufficient.
According to Cayetano, raising P250 billion will be enough to give Filipino families P10,000 each as aid.
"Sa P250 billion, meron kang two options. One option ibigay mo na 'yung P10,000 isang bigayan, or ibigay mo yung P5,000 at itabi mo 'yung P150 billion para sa susunod na administrasyon," he suggested.
(For the P250 billion, you have two options. One option is to give a one-time P10,000, or distribute P5,000 and then save the P150 billion for the next administration.)
The lawmaker added that saving P150 billion will help the next administration in finding funds in case of future disasters, such as another pandemic, another oil price hike, or if the Russia-Ukraine conflict extends.
"So hindi totoo na we're helpless. Mahirap humanap ng pera pero meron tayong mahahanap," said Cayetano.
(So it’s not true that we’re helpless. It’s hard to look for funds, but we can find them.)
He said that this proposal was similar to the one back in the administration of Fidel Ramos, except it asked for agencies to save 10% of their budget.
