The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) on Monday proposed a P2.54-billion budget cut for the entire UP System in 2023. Over a third of the proposed reduction–P893 million–will be slashed from the UP Philippine General Hospital (PGH).
For 2023, the national government plans to give P21,853,587,000 to UP, down from this year’s current funding of P24,392,029,000. The budget proposal is also P22.3 billion lower than what the UP administration initially pitched.
Should Congress approve DBM’s budget proposal for UP, it would be the biggest budget cut that the national university would experience in 10 years. The last time that UP’s annual budget was slashed was in 2016 when its funding was reduced by P1.3 billion.
The DBM’s budget proposal, called the National Expenditure Program, largely retains the university’s 2022 budget. The DBM’s proposed cuts mainly affected UP’s infrastructure plans and proposed equipment procurement.
In the case of the UP-owned PGH, no budget was given to fund the completion and fit-out of the hospital’s multispecialty building which costs P200 million. The building would house PGH’s neuroscience department, as well as other specializations like oncology, psychiatry, and ophthalmology.
The national government likewise rejected the UP administration’s infrastructure splurge amounting to P14.8 billion–the highest infrastructure budget ever proposed by UP. The lone large-scale construction project left out in the NEP is for UP Visayas’s Regional Research Center which costs P15.6 million.
Absent in the budget proposal, too, is the university’s P50-million proposed budget for the resettlement of campus “informal settlers.” Former University Student Councilor Ajay Lagrimas told the Collegian that any resettlement must first be consulted with the affected communities.
DBM Secretary Amenah Pangandaman submitted President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s first spending plan worth P5.268 trillion to Congressional leaders earlier this morning at the Batasang Pambansa. In his budget message, Marcos said his plan would tackle the administration’s eight-point socioeconomic agenda, which includes “unimpeded and adequate delivery of social services such as health, education, and social protection.”
The DBM warned in a national budget memorandum that new spending plans, mostly infrastructure projects, and large equipment purchases, must be “implementation-ready.” In the Commission on Audit’s 2021 report, state auditors noted that the university had “lapses” in the utilization of its budget due to “poor planning and implementation.”
Congress could begin the process of approving the budget as early as today when Congressional leaders formally file the NEP as a house bill. The House of Representatives aims to pass their version of the budget bill before Congress goes on recess on October 1.
University officials could still pitch for a higher budget during UP’s budget deliberations in the lower house next month. ●
