MANILA: Filipino President Ferdinand Marcos Jr asked Congress on Monday (Aug 22) for a record 5. 29 trillion pesos (US$94. 40 billion) government budget in 2023 to back up an ambitious plan agenda aimed at increasing growth and lifting millions out of poverty.
Marcos’ proposed budget, which is equal to 22. two per cent of the country’s total economic result, is nearly 5 per cent higher than his predecessor’s spending plan for 2022.
He is planning to expand the Southeast Asian economy by as much as 8 per cent throughout his six-year phrase, to keep its location among Asia’s fastest-growing nations, and halve the poverty price, which stood on 18. 1 percent in 2021.
Education, infrastructure, food security, healthcare and clean energy got top priority in the 2023 budget, which was introduced to Congress by a presidential representative.
Congress is likely to approve the budget by October and Marcos is expected to indication it into regulation before year’s end.
The education sector will receive the top allocation of 852. 8 billion pesos or 16 percent of the total budget, followed by public works together with 13 per cent, healthcare with 5 %, and social well being with about 4 per cent, Marcos mentioned in a statement that will accompanied the budget suggestion.
The president, who is the son and namesake from the strongman toppled within a 1986 uprising, furthermore runs the farming portfolio, which will get 184. 1 billion dollars pesos, a forty per cent jump from the 2022 budget.
Marcos, who won a single six-year phrase in the May political election, commands a supermajority in Congress, increasing chances of advancing their legislative agenda, including his 2023 costs programme. His cousin, Ferdinand Martin Romualdez, is the speaker of the lower house.