Duterte to sign 2019 budget on April 15

MANILA, Philippines — President Duterte will sign the P3.757-trillion budget program for this year on Monday at Malacañang.

Officers of the Senate and the House of Representatives led by Senate President Vicente Sotto III and Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo have been invited to the signing ceremonies.

Also invited are members of the House appropriations committee and the Senate finance committee chaired by Rep. Rolando Andaya Jr. of Camarines Sur and Sen. Loren Legarda, respectively.

Documents, meanwhile, show senators and members of the House of Representatives have increased their own budget for this year by a combined P2.8 billion to P19 billion.

President Duterte had proposed P11.6 billion for 291 House members and P4.6 billion for 23 senators.

The larger chamber of Congress padded its budget by P1.1 billion, while senators gave themselves an additional P1.7 billion.

The President recommended P284 million for the Senate Electoral Tribunal (SET) and P791 million for the Commission on Appointments (CA).

Funding for the SET was reduced by P8 million, while that for the CA was increased by P51 million.

For the House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal, Duterte proposed P205 million, which Congress cut by P9 million.

The amount of taxpayers’ money allocated for 314 lawmakers this year totals P20.3 billion.

The CA is composed of 12 senators and 12 House members with the Senate president as ex-officio chairman and presiding officer. The 25 members receive additional allowances from the CA on top of their salaries and emoluments from their respective chambers.

The electoral tribunals are composed of three Supreme Court justices each and six senators and six congressmen. Like their CA counterparts, tribunal members, including the six justices, receive additional allowances.

Of the President’s P4.6-billion proposed budget for the Senate, P2.8 billion is for salaries and the balance is for maintenance and other operating expenses (MOOE).

The senators’ biggest MOOE expenditure items are P282 million for travel, P170 million for miscellaneous and extraordinary expenses, P242 million for rental, P93 million for representation and P160 million for consultants.

For the House of Representatives, the appropriation for salaries is P5.4 billion.

The bulk of its funding will go to MOOE, including P2.2 billion for consultants, P1.1 billion for travel, P615 million for miscellaneous and extraordinary expenses and P220 million for communication expenses.

For the Office of the President, lawmakers allocated what Duterte recommended: P6.8 billion, of which P2.5 billion is for intelligence and confidential expenses, P386 million for consultants and P17 million for “financial assistance/subsidy.”

The President recommended P456 million for the office of Vice President Leni Robredo, but Congress, upon the initiative of the Senate, increased it by P216 million.

The biggest MOOE item in Robredo’s budget is P198 million for “financial assistance/subsidy.”

‘Budget book’

Meanwhile, a “budget book” that will serve as guide for lawmakers in itemizing their billions in pork barrel funds will come out with the signing of the 2019 budget by President Duterte on April 15.

“Once the President signs the 2019 General Appropriations Act, the fourth budget book with itemized allocation for programs and projects will be out in the open,” Camarines Sur Rep. Rolando Andaya, chairman of the House appropriations committee, said.

“The public release of the new budget law will leave our esteemed senators no choice but to identify their individual realignments which found print in the 2019 GAA,” Andaya said.

“Only by doing so can the public be made fully aware what are the pet programs and projects of the senators they voted into office,” the administration lawmaker said, as he again called on the senators to itemize their billions of pesos in pork barrel funds.

“The senators may oppose such approach, but it is in full compliance with the laws of the land and in light of the Supreme Court (SC) decision. The line-item budgeting approach is adopted in the 2019 GAB. It is printed in the budget books for every taxpayer to see,” he said.

Andaya said this would be the “first time that the GAA, once signed by the President, is made up of four volumes of budget books” and compliant with the November 2013 SC decision against lump-sum allocations of lawmakers.

“The SC decision from 2013 has specifically instructed lawmakers to adopt a detailed line-item budgeting for the full appreciation of the President,” he said.

“It is for this reason that the SC had declared discretionary lump sum funds unconstitutional,” he pointed out.

“We agree with the high court’s decision as line-item budgeting clearly spells out the specific projects to be given allocation and where these projects shall be located,” he maintained.

“Line-item budgeting is our response to the people’s demand for transparency and accountability in the national budget. Lump-sum funds are more prone to corruption and violate many tenets of transparent expenditure of public funds,” Andaya added.

The “fourth book” contains the list of itemized allocation for programs and projects under the 2019 General Appropriations Bill.

“The House leadership has moved for the itemization of the budget for specific programs and projects in compliance with the latest SC decision on the pork barrel issue,” Andaya said. – With Delon Porcalla