An Act Instituting the Schedule of Submission of the Proposed Bangsamoro Budget Expenditure Program, Increasing Budget Transparency and Participation, and for Other Purposes

The Bangsamoro Budget Reform Act of 2023 fixes when the executive must give Parliament its budget, and what has to be in it.

The Ministry of Finance, Budget and Management must submit the Proposed Bangsamoro Expenditure Program to Parliament not later than 30 days from the fourth Monday of July each year, and that document is the basis of the General Appropriations Bill. The Minister may also transmit supplemental or deficiency appropriations where laws enacted after transmission require it or the public interest otherwise needs it.

The form and content are prescribed. The Program must include a Minister’s Budget Message previewing the principles, objectives, policy framework and spending priorities; a Budget of Expenditures and Sources of Financing carrying the macroeconomic parameters, a three-year expenditure, revenue, financing and outstanding debt picture, an overview of the financial position of Bangsamoro government-owned corporations and of public-private partnership projects, and a list of new multi-year projects with their duration, total project cost and contractual authorities issued; and a Bangsamoro Expenditure Program setting out strategic objectives, the detail of the three-year expenditure program, performance information including key strategies, outputs and outcomes for each agency against its budget, and a staffing summary.

The finance ministry issues implementing rules within 90 days, in coordination with relevant agencies and stakeholders.

The declaration of policy is about results rather than timing: a budget oriented towards explicit objectives and expected results, so funds are used and operations conducted effectively, economically and efficiently — and, in the bill’s own words, to enforce the power of Parliament to hold every ministry, bureau, office and agency responsible for proposing, executing and delivering committed results in a timely, predictable and economic manner.

The timing provision serves that end. A Parliament handed the budget late cannot scrutinise it, and a budget that arrives without performance information cannot be scrutinised at all.

The performance information is the reform, not the calendar. Requiring that each agency’s budget arrive with its key strategies, outputs and outcomes and a staffing summary is the difference between a legislature approving line items and a legislature approving results — and the three-year forward view, the debt position, the GOCC financial picture and the multi-year project list with total costs and contractual authorities are the four things that most often hide the real fiscal position of a government from the body voting on it.

The title promises more than the text delivers in one respect. It says the Act increases "budget transparency and participation". Transparency is amply provided for by the disclosure requirements. Participation is not: there is no public consultation mechanism, no civil society role, and no published document requirement beyond submission to Parliament. The only place stakeholders appear is in Section 5, where the finance ministry coordinates with them in writing the implementing rules. A committee could supply the missing half easily — a requirement that the Program be published when transmitted would do most of it.

What the bill does not carry is a consequence for late submission. The date is stated; nothing follows from missing it.

It was filed August 2023, given First Reading a month later, and referred to the Committee on Finance, Budget and Management in September 2024.