Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) Secretary Rex Gatchalian underscored the substantial improvement of the agency’s budget utilization rate during the House Committee on Appropriations’ deliberation of the DSWD’s 2025 proposed budget on Wednesday (August 21).

“We did a comprehensive housekeeping by conducting a thorough review of our processes and implemented significant improvements. We are pleased to report that the DSWD has made substantial progress in financial management,” Secretary Gatchalian said in his opening presentation.

Secretary Gatchalian told House solons that the DSWD’s obligation rate in July 2023 was only 39 percent, with a disbursement rate of 67 percent.

“This year, the DSWD significantly surpassed this performance with an obligation rate of almost 51 percent and a disbursement rate of nearly 90 percent for the same period,” the DSWD chief said.

In terms of actual figures, Secretary Gatchalian pointed out there was a 122 percent improvement in budget utilization.

“That’s an obligation amounting to Php75.3 billion last year to an obligation of Php123.2-billion this year. From a disbursement of around Php50.4-billion pesos, it’s now Php123-billion pesos,” Secretary Gatchalian explained.

Because of this significant performance, the DSWD was recognized in the Economic Managers’ Meeting in April as one of the agencies with improved budget utilization compared to last year, thus contributing to increase in public spending of the government, according to Secretary Gatchalian.

“This remarkable turnaround is a testament of our focused efforts on efficient budget utilization by optimizing our processes and maximizing the impact of every peso. We have been able to deliver essential services to more Filipinos,” Secretary Gatchalian reported to the Appropriations Committee.

The DSWD, including its attached and supervised agencies, is proposing a Php229.7 billion budget for 2025. #