Citing the global economic crisis and the projected huge budget deficit for 2010, former President Joseph Estrada on Sunday said the next president should prioritize spending on social services and job-generation to enable Filipinos to cope with harsher times ahead.

Estrada made the statement following the recent report of Finance Secretary Margarito Teves of a projected P294 billion government deficit for 2010.

“The next president should set his priorities on increased assistance to the poor and unemployed and expand in triple digits the budgets for social services,” said Estrada, who is among the eight candidates for president in the May 2010 elections.

He stressed the importance of government attention to social services that would provide adequate food and medical services. He also said public schools must be accessible to poor students who usually are forced to drop out due to lack of money for transportation.

The popular opposition leader pointed to three “must” priority programs for the incoming administration to help cushion the impact of the dire economic projections for 2010 and beyond: food security, enhanced health program for the poor and accessible schools.

He said schools must be within walking distance from barangay centers where a big number of out-of-school children of poor families, who cannot afford transport costs, live.

He said 90 percent of poor Filipinos do not enjoy the benefit of even a pre-school education, making it hard for them to reach college, which he pointed out is another root cause of poverty.

“Children of middle-class families benefit from three years of pre-school before starting Grade 1 and finishing Grade 7 before being allowed to graduate from grade school, and compare these figures to children of poor families bereft of pre-school education. Such figures easily establish the wide gap between the rich and the poor,” Estrada said.

Saying that government inaction in providing educational facilities and services has caused the big drop-out rate among grade school students especially in the provinces, Estrada noted the need to re-engineer budgetary allocations to put up school facilities in areas where children will no longer walk “by kilometers to and from school.“

An increase in budgetary allocations for education, Estrada pointed out, should also be used to defray the expenses of college scholars especially those studying science and math.

“Such priority programs to soften the harsh economic conditions from the government’s projected P294 billion shortfall can only be done if implemented hand-in-hand with a stringent and no-nonsense peace and order measure,” Estrada said.

A strong food security program, according to Estrada, should provide food on the table for 70 percent of the country’s population currently living below the poverty line.

“It will not be an easy year ahead for us, but a re-focusing of government priorities to food security, education, and affordable medical services could be the first salvo towards warding off the consequence of an anemic global economy, made worse by the projected P294 billion deficit waiting in the wings to welcome the incoming administration,” Estrada said.