ROMERO, LOURDE MANCHESTER 3 EMC2 Entrepreneurial Management ECOB Sir Louie Molina

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What is the total amount of government funds that have been disbursed from July to December but not spent yet. What do you think will be its impact on the GDP for the 3rd and 4th quarter of the current year? Based from this years (2013) National budget of P2.006 trillion, and an expenditure from January to July of P1.089 trillion, the government funds that are not yet spent amounts to P0.917 trillion. Looking at it, if this amount represents a big chunk in the GDP of 2013, it will be not as desirable than if income or investment spending is greater. What is the budget deficit incurred by the Pnoy government in the first half of the year? What is the target deficit by the government for the whole year? What percent of GDP is this target deficit? For the first half of the year, the budget deficit incurred by the government amount to P51.3 billion (but expected to double to P105 billion in july). It is 36% bigger than of the deficit last year which was P39.2 billion. The target deficit of the government for the whole year is an amount which is within the range of their deficit ceiling of P238.9 billion (the government has a P144.5 billion ceiling for the first 3 quarters of the year). This amount must be in range of 2.0% of the GDP that the Philippines will register. Read the column by former Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno in the Malaya Business Insight Newspaper dated Sept. 9, 2013. Acording to him, Pnoy was allocated a presidential port by Congress in the amount of P200M for year 2012. How much was actually spent by Pnoy? Is this good or bad? Give your comment. Based from the MBI article by Mr. Diokno, Pnoy was granted a Financial Subsidy to Local Government Units that amount to P200 million. However, the president actually spent P2.396 billion. This was more than ten times the amount authorized to him by the Congress. Because of this, we can conclude that the president has not followed the limit on his spending. But being someone known as anti-corrupt, it still leaves an eye -brow raising image for ordinary citizens who would come about this fact. For me this is not good because at the current model of the government, he is in a position which has power and potential to manipulate funds. Similar to what Mr. Diokno said, his presidential discretion is really potent. Granted that he is really up to his tuwid na daan policy, will he do something to fix this seemingly undemocratic paradigm? And what if he is not as honest as he blatantly describes himself? Then the cycle of untraceable funds goes on again.

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Sources (APA): Aquino, B. S. III H.E. 2013 Budget Message of President Aquino. Official Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines. Retrieved 11 September 2013 from http://www.gov.ph/2012/07/24/2013-budget-message-ofpresident-aquino/. Leyco, C. Govt Budget Deficit Reaches P53.2B in July. Manila Bulletin. 10 September 2013. Retrieved 11 September 2013 from http://www.mb.com.ph/govt-budget-deficit-reaches-p53-2b-in-july/. Diokno, B. Undermining the Hard Budget Constraint Rule. Malaya Business Insight. 11 September 2013. Retrieved 11 September 2013 from http://www.malaya.com.ph/opinion/undermining-hard-budget-constraint-rule.