The President's budget for 2003 : deficit in revenues leading to a deficit in services / by Rosario G. Manasan.

Cover title : Analysis of the President's budget for 2003 : deficit in revenues leading to a deficit in revenues.

Special paper: Philippine country study on Meeting the Millennium Development Goals.

The message of the President's Budget for 2003 asserts that this year's budget supports the administration's vision of a strong republic that takes good care of its people and their future. The budget seeks to address the core needs of food, employment, education, health and housing. It also promises to provide funds and logistics necessary to ensure peace and order as well as eliminate graft and corruption. This study, however, documents that the national government will again overshoot its fiscal deficit targets for 2002 and 2003 in this year's budget. It also stresses that the fiscal problem that currently confronts the country stems not so much from the expenditure side but from the revenue side. While national government expenditures have remained fairly stable in the aggregate, tax effort has declined continuously since 1997. Consequently, the proposed 2003 budget of most govenment agencies is lower compared to that in 2002, thus threatening the delivery of adequate public services in 2003. Meanwhile, the accompanying special paper is part of a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)project that undertook pilot studies in five countries, including the Philippines, so as to generate estimates of financing gaps and the needed policy measures pertaining to the attainment of the millennium development goals(MDGs). The study documents the progress toward meeting the MDGs, estimates the financial requirements needed to achieve each goal, compares the resource requirements with the funding level that is likely to be made available to determine the funding gap under alternative macro and sectoral policy scenarios, and proposes how resources can be optimally managed so as to maximize their effectiveness.