Consultancy group says P75-B block fund for Cordillera autonomy justified
BAGUIO CITY—A group of Cordillera technocrats backed the planned P75-billion block subsidy for the proposed Autonomous Region of the Cordillera (ARC), saying the amount was not only justified but would pose no strain to government coffers.
The fiscal forecast made by the consultancy group Nadunop Interdisciplinary Research and Development on Social Sciences (NIRDSS) concluded that the improved Cordillera economy—aided by new investments and the block grants—can finance an autonomous government and absorb all national government programs meant for the region.
The P75-billion 10-year subsidy to jump-start and sustain the ARC was stalled in the previous Congress due to concerns that the national government may not be able to afford it yet.
In 2023, former Finance Secretary and now Monetary Board member Benjamin Diokno, former Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman and Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Arsenio Balisacan had informed Congress the government could absorb Cordillera’s proposed block grant only by 2029, so as not to affect other national programs and to manage the national deficit.
At that time, the House of Representatives was deliberating House Bill No. 3627, creating the ARC composed of the provinces of Ifugao, Kalinga, Apayao, Abra, Benguet and Mountain Province and Baguio City as mandated by the 1987 Constitution.
The NIRDSS study, presented during a consultation on ARC’s fiscal viability undertaken in Baguio by the Cordillera Regional Development Council on Dec. 11, noted that allocations for government line agencies in the region could be absorbed by the ARC.
Devolved employees
The ARC, it said, could take charge of approximately 28,600 state employees from devolved line agencies except for “constitutional and independent commissions” like the Commission on Audit and the Commission on Elections; and oversight agencies like the Department of the Interior and Local Government, the police and the military.
The ARC can also absorb contractual personnel “needed to manage or administer critical programs like the (conditional cash transfer program) Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program [for which] 800 contractual workers were hired by the Department of Social Welfare and Development,” said NIRDSS director Merialda Nadunop.
Around 70 percent (23,068) of the projected national workforce that would be devolved to the Cordillera are teachers and nonteaching school personnel, she added.
“The additional cost of autonomy is modest when compared to the baseline (regional line agency budgets of P34.742 billion in 2025) … The grand total budget under autonomy increases to P41.34 billion in 2026 [and up to] P77.96 billion in 2035,” the study said.
According to Jose Dado Jr., deputy director of the Department of Economy, Planning and Development in the Cordillera, they retained the original P75-billion block grant proposal “because it is reasonable once the government enforces a full devolution of all national government agencies to a Cordillera regional government.”
Dado said the projections made by NIRDSS also resolve concerns about “double funding.” Malacañang’s fiscal managers have pointed out that the last autonomy bill would appear to require the national government to continue funding line agency operations on top of the block grant.
BARMM concerns
Lawyer Benedicto Bacani, executive director of the Cotabato City-based Institute of Autonomy and Governance, said during the consultation that the fiscal managers’ reluctance to fund the ARC at this time could partly be due to the fact that the government is still shouldering the ten-year block grants of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).
Unlike Muslim Mindanao, which achieved autonomy in 1989 as the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao and in 2019 as the BARMM, the Cordillera has struggled on its road to autonomy after two laws were rejected in 1990 and 1998. Several bills have been filed creating the ARC, but have not received support from Malacañang.
However, the Cordillera economy has progressively improved with a 4.8-percent growth (P378.26 billion) in the 2024 gross regional domestic product. In November, highland inflation eased further to 1.1 percent from a slow 1.8 percent in October due to affordable food and other commodities.
