Key Features and Principles

 

Greater and Deeper Commitment to the Aquino Social Contract

 

As stated, the proposed National Budget for 2013 is designed to deepen and reinforce the Administration’s commitment to President Aquino’s Social Contract with the Filipino People. This Budget focuses government resources on the following five Key Result Areas of the Social Contract, as defined in Executive Order No. 43:

 

 

To ensure the optimal focus of public funds on these priority areas, the Aquino administration applied the Program Budgeting Approach. Under this new approach, the Administration defined key component Programs per KRA that should be prioritized, as well as their intended outputs and outcomes. The Zero-Based Budgeting Approach was also used to scale down funding for activities which are not aligned with the priority programs, or which are otherwise inefficient, ineffective, and fraught with leakages.

 

 

Accelerated Completion of Priority Program Targets

 

The 2013 Budget adopts key strategies to accelerate the delivery of results, one of which is to assign the DPWH as the Principal Infrastructure Agency, to which all capital outlays for the construction of classrooms, rural health facilities, hospitals, and farm-to-market roads, among others, have been transferred for implementation. With this, the Administration is able to Focus Line Agencies on the Accelerated Delivery of their Core Mandates. To enable the award of contracts and start of projects on the first day of 2013, Pre-Bidding Processes will Start after the Submission of the Proposed Budget. Mechanisms for Closer Performance Monitoring have also been established.

 

 

Stronger Government Accountability to Perform

 

The 2013 Budget deepens the practice of Performance-Based Budgeting: where each peso leads to concrete and measurable results. The Administration has been working to harmonize all disparate performance management systems in government into a single Results-Based Performance Management System. To reward public institutions and public servants who meet or even surpass their outputs and commitments under the Aquino Social Contract, this Budget introduces a system of Performance-Based Incentives, with P10 billion allocated for this system under the proposed Budget.

 

 

Transparency for Faster Budget Execution and Clearer Results

 

The 2013 Budget asserts that transparency is an essential tool not only in deterring corruption but also in enabling the delivery of fast and clear results. The Administration sustained its policy for the Disaggregation of Lump-Sum Funds. With the Budget containing greater detail on programs and projects, the government will be able to Shift to a Budget-as-Release Document Regime by 2014 that eliminates the duplicative budget request and release process. To support this new regime, the predictability of public expenditure will be strengthened through a new policy of One-Year Validity of Appropriations in 2013. DBM also continues to develop and leverage Technological Innovations for Speedier and More Transparent Budget Processes.

 

 

Greater Stakeholder Participation in Budget Preparation and Execution

 

This Budget widens and deepens stakeholder participation. The Bottom-Up Budgeting Approach was introduced, where 593 poor municipalities identified their needed services in a consultative process with community organizations. A total of P8.4 billion has been earmarked for programs and projects defined through this process. Agency-Civil Society Budget Partnerships were expanded to cover 12 departments and six government firms. Public-Private Partnerships for the Delivery of Social Services will also be tapped by packaging the construction and maintenance of classrooms, hospitals and other human development infrastructure requirements for contracting with the private sector.