House, Senate ratify P4.1 trillion 2020 budget

MANILA, Philippines —  The Senate and the House of Representatives ratified yesterday the final version of the P4.1-trillion General Appropriations Bill (GAB) that allegedly includes last-minute insertions – worth as much as P83 billion – made in the last few days of the bicameral deliberations.

Senators and congressmen comprising the bicameral conference committee approved the final version of the national budget yesterday morning in Makati City.

The bicameral panel was jointly chaired by Davao City Rep. Isidro Ungab, who heads the House appropriations committee, and his Senate counterpart Sonny Angara and included lawmakers from both chambers tasked to reconcile conflicting provisions of their respective versions of the GAB.

Sen. Panfilo Lacson, a member of the committee, did not attend the signing of the GAB nor the afternoon plenary session.

He explained that on Tuesday night, he received details from the House itself of the latter’s last-minute insertions as contained in a “source” file and a “list” file.

The source file, the senator said, is the list of 1,253 budget items worth P83.219 billion that was apparently used as the congressmen’s “source” of their “list” of 742 projects worth P16.345 billion that were inserted in the bicameral conference committee report that was signed by both panels.

“Since there is no preliminary explanation from the House regarding the two files, we cannot ascertain if indeed only P16.345 billion or the bigger amount of P83.219 billion was inserted at the last minute prior to the bicam signing,” Lacson said.

“What is clear, though, is that there are still lump sums and vaguely described projects that are now part of the bicam report,” he said.

The senator cited some provinces that received additional allocations in the budget, including Albay with P670 million; Cavite, P580 million; Sorsogon, P570 million; Batangas, P502 million; Bulacan, P440 million; Pangasinan, P420 million and Cebu, P410 million.

Lacson said 117 flood control projects worth P3.179 billion “dominate the insertions,” with eight projects uniformly budgeted at P60 million each.

“There are more corruption-driven insertions in the files sent to us that I have not mentioned. Thus, we will continue to diligently scrutinize it and inform the DBM (Department of Budget and Management) and the Office of the President as I have high hopes that President Duterte will again display his aversion to corruption,” he added.

“Pork is here to stay. I hope the President will again exercise his political will in vetoing line items that will obviously waste people’s tax money,” Lacson averred.

But Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano and Majority Leader Ferdinand Martin Romualdez said in a joint statement, “We passed a budget with no pork, no parked funds and no delays with full transparency.”

“While there is no perfect budget, both the Senate and the House of Representatives have identified areas where funds have been underutilized for various reasons. Thus, both houses made adjustments so it can now be fully utilized for programs such as the Build Build Build and social welfare programs in furthering the goal improving the quality of life of Filipinos,” they said.

The two House leaders said the approval of the proposed budget gives President Duterte ample time to review it and “ensure that it is aligned with the priority programs of the administration.”

“We now leave it up to the departments, agencies and the rest of the executive branch to fully implement the projects and programs with no corruption and with full transparency,” they added.

Safe from cuts

As one of the key programs of his administration, President Duterte won’t allow cuts in the family planning budget, his top economic adviser said yesterday.

“The President will not allow that,” Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ernesto Pernia said in a chance interview yesterday at Malacañang.

“That is one of his pet projects,” he added.

Pernia said he has spoken to Budget Secretary Wendel Avisado about the proposed cut in the family planning outlay.

He claimed that it is only during the time of Duterte that family planning is seriously implemented.

Earlier, the Senate reduced the health department’s budget by P195 million, an outlay supposedly intended for the purchase of implants.

The health department has said the budget is needed “to sustain an effective family planning program” in compliance with provisions of the Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health law.

Delay clarified

Angara clarified the apparent delay in the proceedings of the bicameral panel as well as the amendments that Lacson was hitting.

He said it was the power of Congress as mandated by the Constitution to make amendments to the proposed national budget as they see fit.

“Well, there’re really many insertions when you combine the ones made by the Senate and the House because that’s the work of legislation. According to the Constitution, the power of appropriation is with Congress,” Angara told reporters.

He said every year, lawmakers, especially House members, make amendments to fund infrastructure projects needed by their respective districts.

Angara said the amendments or insertions cannot be considered as pork as they are itemized and conforms with the Supreme Court ruling on lump sums in the national budget.

The House approved its version of the GAB last September while the Senate passed its version last Nov. 27, after which the two chambers convened the bicameral panel to work on conflicting provisions.

Cayetano and Romualdez commended the Ungab-Angara conference committee “for a thorough review and timely approval of the 2020 General Appropriations Bill.”

The House will now print the budget and send it to the President. Its original timeline was Dec. 21, though this might be delayed by one or two days because of a similar delay in the budget conference.

The House and the Senate were originally scheduled to approve the budget last Monday. – With Jess Diaz, Alexis Romero