By Chua Mui Hong

THREE Ps define Budget 2009.

It is pre-emptive, effecting a decisive response to a looming recession before the worst is here. It sets many precedents - of a fiscal and policy nature. And it is a Budget that broke into the piggy bank of past reserves for the first time.

Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam's sober demeanour as he unveiled the ground-breaking Budget said it all.

The world is on the brink of the worst economic recession in 60 years since the Great Depression.

Every major economy is in lock-step recession.

Singapore faces its worst recession since Independence.

Exceptional circumstances require an extraordinary Budget, said Mr Tharman. And this is certainly 'no ordinary Budget', in his words.

It scores on superlatives: the biggest bonanza of $20.5 billion to help tide businesses and individuals over a downturn predicted to be both deep and long. The Government is chalking up its biggest-ever primary deficit of $14.94 billion or 6 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP). After investment returns and other transfers, the deficit is still $8.67 billion.

Two things make this a truly extraordinary, precedent-setting, pre-emptive Budget.

The first is that it is partly financed by $4.9 billion of past reserves, which requires the assent of the Elected President. Mr Tharman said the Government had made the case for a drawdown of reserves to the Council of Presidential Advisers and the President, the President had given his in-principle approval, and his assent would be sought after Parliament passes the Supply Bill.

This is the first time the so-called presidential 'second key' is being asked to unlock the nation's past reserves.

The drawdown is subject to parliamentary majority approval and the final assent of the President. No one seriously doubts that the cohesive People's Action Party-controlled Parliament or the President, who has indicated yea, will say nay.

The manner in which past reserves can be unlocked, swiftly, with decisions made away from the public eye and seemingly presented as a fait accompli, will raise questions in some Singaporeans' minds as to how robust the fabled 'second key' is.

It may seem churlish to make this point now, when a protracted downturn and massive job losses loom on the horizon calling for a decisive response.