House to tighten oversight over departments

MANILA, Philippines - The House of Representatives will reassert its power of the purse in tightening its oversight on departments, local government units (LGUs) and government-owned and controlled corporations (GOCCs) to ensure transparency and prevent the wastage and misuse of taxpayers’ money, Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. said yesterday.

Belmonte made the statement at the opening of the second regular session of the 16th Congress as lawmakers have felt their influence over other branches of government waning since the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) was scrapped after the multibillion-peso pork barrel scandal erupted.

The Senate and the House are also reeling from the fallout over the Supreme Court ruling declaring as unconstitutional the P177-billion Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP), whose beneficiaries include lawmakers.

“Congress holds the power of the purse – otherwise known as the power to appropriate, and its twin, the power of legislative oversight,” Belmonte said, adding that the House is ready to receive the proposed P2.6- trillion national budget for 2015 and approve it on time after careful scrutiny.

“We must now exercise these in order to strengthen accountability mechanisms and ensure the proper and lawful allocation and utilization of public funds,” he said.

He said the SC rulings on the PDAF and the DAP have created new challenges to Congress, “so we need to explore new legislative paths to bring needed resources and services to our people.”

He said he reviewed several reports of the Commission on Audit (COA) and two things came to light.

First, there are a large number of audit recommendations that are not implemented, or are only partially implemented; and a significant number of audit reports result only in qualified or disclaimer opinions.

“These indicate possible misuse of public funds and inefficient public spending. This should concern us, as representatives of the people, since we gave government the authority to collect tax money from them whom we swore to serve,” Belmonte said.

He said from now on, all sub-committees of the House appropriations committee, which tackles the annual budget of the government, must implement an oversight plan of action over departments, agencies and entities whose mandates fall within their respective jurisdictions.