President Noy: From Zero Coke to Zero love life to Zero Capital Outlay for State Universities and Colleges and Hospitals

(Source: U.P. Kilos Na)

Feeling thirsty? Dehydrated? Need a drink? Sure, go ahead and have your pot-belly busting Coke Zero but while you are doing that, please spare a thought for State Universities and Hospitals who have been given zero capital outlay by the administration of President Benigno S. Aquino III making it difficult for them to carry out their missions effectively.

It would be different if we were a Somalia or some other bankrupt failed state. But we are in the Philippines and have been at least nominally democratic and self-governing since 1946, and we can certainly do much better with our existing resource base. After all, if the Department of Budget and Management Secretary Florencio "Butch" Abad can allocate P800 million for his home province for capital expenditures in 2012 for the national budget when Batanes only has a population of 15,000; and allocates zero capital expenditures for capital expenditures for 2012 for the province of Davao del Norte which has a population of more than 700,000 then you know that something is seriously wrong. It becomes even worse when the proposed budget of the University of the Philippines System is slashed by 64% from P15 billion to P5.1 billion which is P800 million less than it got in 2011.

The problem boils down not to a lack of resources but to a misallocation of resources by the administration of President Benigno S. Aquino III and its distorted priorities.

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