NEGROS Occidental Governor Eugenio Jose Lacson is proposing an annual provincial budget worth about P5.7 billion for 2022.

In his letter to the Sangguniang Panlalawigan (SP) Wednesday, October 13, 2021, Lacson stated the salient portions and flagship programs of his administration for next year.

A big chunk of the budget being eyed for 2022 will go to Special Purpose Appropriations (SPA), pegged at P2,142,140,592 or 37.45 percent of the total proposed fund.

The SPA includes appropriations for gender, disaster, peace and order and other special concerns and sectors, he said.

For Maintenance and Other Operating Expenses (MOOE), the governor is allotting P1,812, 481, 024 or 31.69 percent of the proposer budget.

Personal services comprise 36.05 percent of the allocation amounting to P1,752,715,730 while the capital outlay is 21 percent worth P12,000,000.

Under the personal services, a total of P1,143,071,636 or 65.22 percent is allotted for social services sector; P344, 765, 598 or 19. 67 percent for general public services sector; and P264, 878,496 or 15. 11 percent for the economic services sector.

A total of P183, 846,174.37 was appropriated for the operation of the Economic Enterprise Development Department (EEDD).

“The annual expenditure program is designed to better address the climacteric issues and concerns of our province,” Lacson said.

“Notwithstanding that there is a dramatic increase in our National Tax Allotment, formerly Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA), caused by the Supreme Court ruling on the Mandanas-Garcia case, it is still an uphill climb considering that this does not come without added responsibilities,” he added.

A portion of the budget will be derived from the national tax allocation while 5.75 percent comes from local revenues.

The Provincial Board is expected to start the deliberation of the proposed budget by the third week of this month.

The governor said the provincial government expects an increase of P1.4 billion in the National Tax Allocation.

The Mandanas ruling, Lacson said, is a 2018 Philippine Supreme Court decision asserting that the bases of the computations of the IRA for local government units (LGUs) are erroneous thus, denying them a just share.

At present, LGU’s IRA comes from 40 percent of national internal revenue taxes collected by the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR).

With the implementation of the ruling in 2022, it is projected that LGUs will have a 27.61 percent increase in the total IRA shares based on the computation made by the Department of Finance (DOF).

This is equivalent to a P234.39 billion increase in the funds that will be redistributed to all LGUs in the country, the DOF said.