Senate accepts possible reenacted budget this year

The Senate has accepted the possibility of a reenacted budget for the entire year as passage of the proposed 2006 national budget may not be possible within the first quarter of the year.

Senate President Franklin Drilon said there are indications that Congress would not be able to pass the 2006 budget by March 31 as he had predicted earlier.

If the delay in the passage of the budget goes beyond the first quarter, Drilon and Sen. Manny Villar said it would make more sense to simply reenact the budget for the entire year.

"If there is an inordinate delay beyond March 31, then there appears to be no sense in passing a new budget if only for half a year," Drilon said.

In the past, when the previous year’s budget had been reenacted up to the middle of the following year, the government simply operated under the previous year’s budget, he added.

Both senators lamented that a reenacted budget would be detrimental to government employees who were supposed to receive a pay hike this year.

Villar, however, said that Congress could just pass a supplementary budget so that the pay hike could still be implemented.

According to Drilon, the House has not set any budget hearings for this week and it is unlikely that the House will be able to transmit the budget to the Senate by mid-February.

"Given this fact, I don’t see how we can approve this budget by March 31. We could not act on the budget until we receive the House version as provided for under the Constitution. And because of this delay in the House, we could not approve the budget," Drilon said.

Drilon, Villar and Sen. Joker Arroyo all expressed concern about the delay in passing the budget, saying it would provide the President with a significant amount of funds to be used at her own discretion.

With a reenacted budget, appropriations for capital expenditures or infrastructure projects that were already completed in the previous year would still be available for the same purpose.

Since these projects have already been undertaken and some even completed, the appropriated funds would no longer be used for the same purpose but could be realigned by the President for any purpose.