IKOT.PH
The proposed Department of Health (DOH) budget for next year’s operations of government-run drug abuse treatment and rehabilitation centers will get a massive P2.31 billion cut under the 2018 national budget bill. The DOH has a proposed gross 2018 budget of P164.8 billion, 9 percent up from this year’s P151.3 billion. Both of the […]
The proposed budget to bring electricity to public schools will jump nine-fold to almost P3 billion next year, a crucial step in bringing an estimated 7,413 schools “out of the dark ages,” Senate President Pro-Tempore Ralph Recto said. One in six government elementary and high schools is not connected to a power grid, Recto […]
The national budget will jump to P3.767 trillion in 2018, or by P1 trillion, from its 2016 level of 2.682 trillion, and Senate President Pro-Tempore Ralph Recto doubts if agencies have the capacity “to spend their allocations, which essentially are taxes collected from the people.” “The budget will balloon by P1 trillion within a […]
The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) fund to assist OFWs in distress will jump two-and-half times to P1 billion in 2018, while a legal fund, also managed by the DFA, will double to P200 million, Senate President Pro-Tempore Ralph Recto said. Recto hailed the twin budgetary initiatives as “good news long overdue” even as […]
Philippine embassies in conflict-threatened countries should be given a “quick reaction fund” that would allow them to bring Filipinos out of harm’s way once a crisis becomes full-blown, Senate President Pro-Tempore Ralph Recto said. Recto said “contingencies must be arranged not after, but before an emergency.” “There should be provisions for safe havens and […]
Senate President Pro-Tempore Ralph Recto thanked President Rodrigo Duterte, “the country’s teacher-in-chief,” for signing into law the free college tuition bill. “By signing the law, he is in effect lecturing the nation that we should not just build, build, build for the sake of our future, but also teach, teach, teach our youth, ” […]
If flood and storm text alerts have been few and infrequent, blame it on the circuitous way that proposed messages are “processed and approved before they are sent out,” Senate President Pro-Tempore Ralph Recto said. “It is not the fault of telcos,” Recto said, “but the process that these alert warnings have to go […]
The free public WiFi bill which has been approved by Congress will not only make internet services available to all Filipinos, but will make sure that broadband services are faster and more efficient, its main proponent, Senator Ralph Recto, said. The bill is now headed to President Duterte’s table for his signature after both […]
After both houses of Congress ratified the reconciled version of the bill making tuition in public colleges free, Malacañang should include the cost of the program in the 2018 national budget. The call was made by Senator Ralph Recto, author of the bill, who said that without funds to bankroll it, the bill, even […]
Malacañang has been urged to rush a “humanitarian army” to Marawi City and to nearby places where the “spillover of a massive wave of evacuees” are straining local resources to grant them comfort and aid, Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto said. Recto said there are billions of pesos in unspent Calamity Fund waiting […]