Senate OKs P3-trillion 2016 budget

MANILA, Philippines - The Senate has approved on third and final reading the proposed P3.002-trillion national budget for 2016.

After several hours of debates that lasted until evening yesterday, the proposed national budget was approved with a vote of 14 to 1, with the lone nay vote coming from Sen. Aquilino Pimentel III.

Voting in favor were Senate President Franklin Drilon and Sens. Paolo Benigno Aquino IV, Nancy Binay, Pia Cayetano,  Joseph Victor Ejercito, Juan Ponce Enrile, Francis Escudero, Teofisto Guingona III, Loren Legarda, Sergio Osmeña III, Grace Poe, Ralph Recto, Vicente Sotto III and Antonio Trillanes IV.

The Department of National Defense received a P10.78-billion increase in its budget, the bulk of which went to the Philippine Air Force (PAF) as proposed by Enrile.

Enrile pushed for an increase in the PAF budget for the training of pilots and the purchase of new planes. A total of P10.06 billion was added to the PAF budget.

The budget for the Office of the Vice President, allocated a mere P230.5 million in the version approved by the House of Representatives, was increased to P500 million, also upon the initiative of Enrile.

Also enjoying significant increases in their respective budgets were the following: The Department of Public Works and Highways, an increase of P4.07 billion; Department of Science and Technology, P1.2 billion and State Universities and Colleges, P4.27 billion.

The following agencies’ budgets were reduced: The Department of Environment and Natural Resources, down by P2.75 billion; Department of Social Welfare and Development, P1.78 billion; Commission on Higher Education, P1.29 billion.

In all, the Senate approved an increase of P18.5 billion in the budgets of the various departments and agencies from the figure approved by the House.

For the special purpose funds, a net reduction of P17.7 billion was introduced by the Senate for budgetary support to government corporations.

A total of P18 billion in budgetary support for the Land Bank of the Philippines and the Development Bank of the Philippines was removed by the Senate.

The amount was supposed to be used to raise the reserves of the two government banks in compliance with the directive of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.

Recto said that the funds were realigned for capital outlay of the SUCs and the tuition of one million public school students.

The contingent fund was reduced by P1 billion to P3 billion, while the pension and gratuity fund was reduced by P4 billion.

The Miscellaneous Personnel Benefits Fund went up to P96.2 billion in the version of the Senate, from P92.2 billion in the House version or a net increase of P4 billion.

In the unprogrammed fund, the Senate reduced the total amount by P20 billion.

A special provision introduced by Escudero was adopted, which would require all documents on lump sum appropriations to be submitted to the Commission on Audit.

The next step would be the holding of bicameral conference committee meetings to reconcile the conflicting provisions in the respective versions of the Senate and the House.

Drilon said that he expects the meetings to be finished by Dec. 4 and the final report ratified by the Senate and the House between Dec. 7 and 11.

“That’s our target date so that the President will have a week to 10 days to review the budget and see whether he will exercise his line-item veto as he would traditionally. We are very confident that we will have the budget finished by the month of December,” Drilon said.