Duterte vetoes 4 'rider' provisions of 2018 national budget

MANILA, Philippines — President Rodrigo Duterte has vetoed four “rider” provisions of his freshly signed 2018 national budget.

Early this month, Duterte inked Republic Act No. 10964, or the General Appropriations Act of 2018, which was about 12.4 percent more than the P3.35-trillion budget for 2017.

Malacañang on Wednesday released a copy of Duterte’s veto message dated December 19 and was sent to Congress.

“Powered by a sound financing program and carefully crafted priorities, the 2018 Budget will not only foster the golden age of infrastructure and secure peace and order, but also accelerate human capital development for sustained and inclusive growth,” the president said.

Below are the items vetoed by Duterte and his corresponding comments:

• Provision granting of monitoring expenses for members of Movie and Television Review and Classification Board. According to Duterte, board members are already authorized to receive per diems in the performance of their official functions under the Salary Standardization Law.
• Provision prohibiting the imposition and collections of fees in relation to the Retention of Reacquisition of Philippine Citizenship and Provision authorizing the Department of Education to use its appropriations for maintenance and other operating requirements for its capital outlay needs. The president argued that agencies of the government cannot be deprived of their inherent authority to assess reasonable fees in the provision of services.
• Provision on the use of income to augment the operational requirements of the Energy Regulatory Commission. Duterte said that apart from being a “rider,” the sources of income enumerated have already been included in the Non-Tax Revenue Program for fiscal year 2018, “thereby resulting in double programming for the said income sources.”

As required by the 1987 Constitution, the education department received the lion’s share of the budget with P553.3 billion.

Agencies with the highest allocations include Department of the Interior and Local Government (P170.8 billion), Department of National Defense (P149.7 billion) and Department of Social Welfare and Development (P141.8 billion).

Last Friday, the Department of Finance released a copy of Duterte’s message to Congress which consists of five line item vetoes to Republic Act No. 10963, or the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) bill.

With the presidential veto, Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III said the TRAIN act’s estimated revenue should go up to at least P90 billion.

The TRAIN law is the first package of the administration’s much-awaited Comprehensive Tax Reform Program. It takes effect on Jan. 1, 2018.