Palace says move will save P304M a year

The abolition of the agencies, including the Presidential Anti-Graft Commission (PAGC) and the Presidential Anti-Smuggling Group (PASG), would save the government some P304.62 million a year, Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa Jr. said Thursday.

"We are abolishing 10 of the 17 locally funded projects, which are no longer relevant or which are duplicative of the functions of the other projects,” he said in a budget hearing of the House appropriations committee.

Priority programs

The amount would then go to priority programs and projects of the Office of the President in 2011, he added.

The other agencies sought to be abolished are the Mindanao Development Council, the Office of the North Luzon Quadrangle Area, the Office of External Affairs, the Minerals Development Council, the Luzon Urban Beltway Super Region, the Bicol River Basin Watershed Management Project, the Office of the Presidential Adviser on Global Warming and Climate Change, and the Office of the Presidential Adviser on New Government Centers.

Ochoa did not say what will happen to the personnel of the agencies that would be abolished.

The OP is retaining the Office of the Presidential Adviser on Peace Process, Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission, Presidential Visiting Forces Agreement Commission, Commission on Information and Communications Technology, Edsa People Power Commission, Commission on Maritime Affairs, Philippine Truth Commission, and Presidential Communications Development and Strategic Planning Office.

Secretary Heherson T. Alvarez, vice chair to the President of the Climate Change Commission, clarified that the Office of the Presidential Adviser on Global Warming and Climate Change was already absorbed by the newly created Climate Change Commission.

Republic Act 9729 or the Climate Change Act of 2009 which created the Climate Change Commission also provided that the powers and functions of the presidential adviser’s office would be absorbed by the new commission, Alvarez said in a statement to the Inquirer.

Ochoa presented the OP’s proposed P4.075-billion 2011 budget, which was 4.3 percent lower than its P4.259 billion budget for 2010.

Lawmakers, however, spent more time grilling Ochoa on the report of the Incident Investigation and Review Committee on the Aug. 23 hostage fiasco, virtually turning the budget hearing into an inquiry on the crisis which left eight Hong Kong tourists dead.
Hostage inquiry

Minority Leader Edcel Lagman and Zambales Rep. Milagros Magsaysay grilled Ochoa on the report’s disclosure to the Chinese government ahead of the Filipino public.

Ochoa maintained that it was Mr. Aquino’s decision not to publicize the recommendations until he had read the report in full. Citing a Joint Circular creating the IIRC and spelling its mandate, he said that the report should be given "only to the President.”

He admitted that Mr. Aquino referred the report to him and the chief presidential legal counsel for "assistance in understanding the full context of the report.”

The questioning on the IIRC report took so much time that at one point Cagayan de Oro Rep. Rufus Rodriguez remarked: "This has become a hostage crisis inquiry.” He then proceeded to ask questions on the OP budget.