{"id":237982,"date":"2019-11-20T20:54:09","date_gmt":"2019-11-21T01:54:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=237982"},"modified":"2019-11-20T20:54:09","modified_gmt":"2019-11-21T01:54:09","slug":"lacson-seeks-full-funding-for-national-id-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/11\/20\/lacson-seeks-full-funding-for-national-id-system\/","title":{"rendered":"Lacson seeks full funding for national ID system"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
FILE: Senator Panfilo Lacson\u00a0 on Thursday (March 28, 2019). (PNA photo by Avito C. Dalan)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA<\/strong>\u00a0— Senator Panfilo Lacson sought on Wednesday to realign several items in the proposed 2020 national budget to plug the gap in the national identification system that is only appropriated only half of its funding requirement for next year.<\/p>\n

He said only PHP2.4 billion has been allotted to the national ID system, whereas the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) needed more than PHP5 billion to cover the registration of an initial 14 million Filipinos and resident aliens next year.<\/p>\n

\u201cMagsisimula na sila sa Mayo kasi nakakasa na ang<\/em>\u00a0equipment and data centers,\u00a0nariyan na naka-<\/em>ready\u00a0lahat. Kailangan mapunuan ang pondo<\/em>\u00a0(The PSA will start in May because the equipment and data centers are already set, everything is ready. We need to fill the funding gap),\u201d Lacson said.<\/p>\n

To fill the gap, he said there are many items in next year\u2019s proposed PHP4.1 trillion budget that can be realigned to fully fund the national ID.<\/p>\n

Among them is the PHP5 billion fund allotted for the National Greening Program (NGP) of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and around PHP14 billion “duplicative expenditure items” under the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH).<\/p>\n

Lacson noted that the NGP has been allocated more than PHP33 billion for the past eight years \u2013 including more than PHP5 billion for 2020 \u2013 and yet \u201cwe don\u2019t see any greens in spite of the continuous appropriation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is much better if we prioritize the national ID system, which is much more worthwhile than the NGP whose output we have yet to see,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, Lacson said there are infrastructure projects under the DPWH that are duplicitous in nature.<\/p>\n

“Sa ngayon, napakababa ng<\/em>\u00a0disbursement\u00a0ng<\/em>\u00a0DPWH,\u00a0kasi nga wala masyado<\/em>\u00a0consultation.\u00a0Ito ‘yung nasisingit ng mga<\/em>\u00a0legislators\u00a0na walang<\/em>\u00a0consultation\u00a0sa ahensiya<\/em>\u00a0so\u00a0di nila nai-<\/em>implement\u00a0nang maayos<\/em>\u00a0(Right now, DPWH disbursement is too low because of lack of consultation. These are the insertions of legislators that were not consulted with the agency, so these could not be properly implemented),” he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo\u00a0maraming pwedeng pagkunan kung gusto natin matugunan. Sa pagbawas sa<\/em>\u00a0corruption,\u00a0pati<\/em>\u00a0tax collection,\u00a0sa lahat na<\/em>\u00a0transaction\u00a0sa<\/em>\u00a0government\u00a0at<\/em>\u00a0private institution, malaking bagay na meron tayong<\/em>\u00a0national ID system,\u201d Lacson said.<\/p>\n

(So there many sources of funds if we want to plug the gap. In the fight against corruption, in tax collection as well as in all transactions with government and private institutions, having a national ID system would be a big help).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u00a0— Senator Panfilo Lacson sought on Wednesday to realign several items in the proposed 2020 national budget to plug the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":207434,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-237982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-ph","mauthors-jose-cielito-reganit","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237982"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237982\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":237983,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237982\/revisions\/237983"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/207434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}