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Cordi body pushes for fiscal autonomy

BAGUIO CITY (July 20) — Dwindling budget allocations in the past few years, has prompted the Regional Development Council (RDC) to push for fiscal autonomy.

Mountain Province Gov. and RDC Chair Maximo Dalog emphasized in his state of the region address on July 20 here that without fiscal autonomy, there is no way to remedy the situation.

“It is very obvious that among the regions in Luzon, CAR has been receiving the least allocation from the national government since 1987 despite the recorded high poverty incidence of 31.2% from 2000 to 2003,” Dalog said. He further revealed that the government gave more money to relatively richer regions.

Cordillera, according to Dalog, contributes more to the national coffers than Cagayan Valley, Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) and CARAGA. About 2.4% of the national gross income comes from the region, he said. He revealed that in the 2006 National Expenditure Program, CAR was among the least priority areas. Allocated 1.1% of the national budget while 1.6% was earmarked for Cagayan Valley and ARMM while CARAGA shall receive 1.3% or 0.2% bigger than the CAR share.

Even in terms of national construction expenditures, CAR has also remained at a disadvantage. Again, the national government has provided more budget allocations for public infrastructure in Cagayan Valley, Central Luzon, and Ilocos despite CAR’s increasing contribution to national economic growth and higher poverty incidence. “Clearly, we see an anomaly in the way the national government allocates its financial resources to the disadvantage of poor regions like the CAR,” Dalog said.

CAR provinces are among the Club 20 or the 20 poorest provinces in the country. # Lyn V. Ramo for NORDIS

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