Effective and pro-poor budgeting | Inquirer BusinessAgriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala should be congratulated for seeing through the 54-percent increase in the Department of Agriculture’s 2012 budget, which the executive branch proposed to Congress. This was a welcome turnaround from last year’s proposal of a 12-percent decrease. However, we must ensure that the budgeting of this money is done wisely. Last August 17, the first Congressional hearing on the budget was conducted. We recommend that a Return on Investment (ROI) approach be used to optimize the final budget configuration. A simple way to explain ROI is to measure the benefit return derived from a given cost (investment).