House plenary budget deliberations 76% done

MANILA, Philippines — The House of Representatives is in its last week of plenary deliberations on the proposed allocations of government agencies, with the P5.268-trillion national budget for 2023 expected to be approved before Oct. 1.

House Majority Leader Manuel Jose Dalipe, who chairs the House committee on rules, disclosed that they have already “approved the budget of at least 76 percent of all government agencies, and is only left with 14 agencies.”

“The implementation of schedules and the flow of the plenary discussion has been executed flawlessly by our team of deputies in the Rules Committee and the Committee on Appropriations,” Dalipe said.

Although the Zamboanga City lawmaker sees longer and more heated discussions on the budget for some agencies, he assured that “it is nothing that we cannot handle.”

“I’m confident we will terminate all debates by Sept. 28 and approve the budget bill by Sept. 30,” he said.

He added that they have approved the budget of a total of 54 departments, attached agencies and constitutional bodies, failing only to act on the budgets of four agencies.

Dalipe noted that the House decided to defer until this week the discussion and approval of the budget for the Department of Finance and its attached agencies, the National Economic and Development Authority and attached agencies, and the Energy Regulatory Commission.

The funding for the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) was approved last week, but not the budget for the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples, an attached agency.

This developed as former president and now Senior Deputy Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and Senior Deputy Minority Leaderand Samar Rep. Paul Daza of the opposition revealed that about 12,000 students are expected to receive scholarship grants from the Commission on Higher Education.

Daza shared that it was through Arroyo’s intervention that around P400 million in CHED’s 2021 continuing appropriations can be allocated to new scholarships.

“No less than the former president and senior deputy speaker mediated and assisted in some discussions with Minority Leader (Marcelino) ‘Nonoy’ Libanan and CHED chairman Popoy de Vera regarding the 2021 continuing appropriations,” Daza said during the interpellations of CHED’s P30.7-billion funding for 2023.

He thanked Arroyo, who assured that the identified funds “would be utilized this year and allocated for poor and deserving students, specifically for Listahan.”

Listahan is a database of poor households that the DSWD uses to identify beneficiaries of its various social protection programs and services, which include the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program or 4Ps and financial aid for indigent students.