House to transmit P4.1-trillion budget to Senate

MANILA, Philippines — The House of Representatives will send the proposed P4.1-trillion national budget for 2020 to the Senate on Tuesday for its consideration and approval.

The House approved the budget bill on third and final reading Friday last week.

“We are now printing it and will transmit it to the Senate on Oct. 1. That should give senators enough time for their deliberations and for a bicameral conference in case there are conflicting provisions in the versions of the two chambers,” Majority Leader Martin Romualdez said yesterday.

He said the final House version would include “some changes made by authority of the plenary before we passed the budget on final reading.”

“We adopted some institutional amendments. Upon the direction of the Speaker, we augmented funds for agriculture, health, the military, the police and education, among other sectors,” he said.

According to Rep. Isidro Ungab of Davao City, who is appropriations committee chairman, the amendments are augmentations to the funds of several agencies.

“We are increasing the palay procurement fund by P3 billion to P10 billion, and funding for the Department of Health by P200 million (not P250 million as earlier reported),” he said.

He said the other augmentations include P1 billion each for the Armed Forces of the Philippines and Philippine National Police, P800 million for Department of Education, P500 million for Philippine General Hospital, P270 million for Department of Transportation and P250 million for improvement of drug rehabilitation centers.

He said funds for protected forest and watershed areas and parks would also be augmented.

Deputy Speaker Mikee Romero of 1-Pacman said the House approved the 2020 budget early “to avoid the kind of costly delay we had this year, which cost the economy about P500 billion and slowed down economic growth.

“This really took its toll on the economy. It meant fewer jobs created and lesser income for our people. It meant scaled down government services,” he said.

He said Cayetano wanted the House to pass the proposed outlay for next year as early as possible to prevent a repeat of the budget enactment delay early this year.

Romero noted that President Duterte signed the budget bill only in April, when an appropriations law should have been in place before the end of last year.

“We have to achieve higher economic growth with early releases of funds for infrastructure projects, social services like cash assistance to the poor and other programs and activities,” he said.

House sources told reporters that early House approval of the budget was also requested by several senators, who are scheduled to celebrate some occasions or milestones abroad and attend international conferences starting next weekend. 

Such conferences, which some House members are attending as well, are usually considered as junkets and vacations at the expense of taxpayers.

Leaders of the Senate and the House of Representatives have agreed to a ceasefire on their word war over alleged pork in the proposed P4.1-trillion national budget for 2020.

Anakalusugan party-list Rep. Michael Defensor had called for the scrapping of the Senate budget after Sen. Panfilo Lacson bared a scheme where deputy speakers allegedly allocated themselves P1.5 billion in projects while House members were supposed recipients of P700 million worth of projects each in the proposed national budget.

Capiz Rep. Fredenil Castro had demanded an apology from Lacson.

‘Lobbying’

Lacson accused Castro of recently seeking his help to lobby a project in his district.

He even made public Castro’s 60-page letter last Sept.19 lobbying for financial assistance to construct a P258-million municipal building for Dumalag, Capiz.

In response, Castro denied lobbying for the project.

Castro said what he wrote was a “letter-request.”

“It was not a lobby letter. It’s a letter-request just like any other letters I sent to other senators. Lobbying is different. My letter-request shows my resolve to help my constituents. It’s not pork barrel,” he explained in a statement.

Lacson further slammed Castro for claiming that the House has not included illegal pork barrel in the national budget.  – With Paolo Romero, Edu Puna