Duterte requests special session to approve budget

President Duterte on Friday called Congress for a “special session” to pass the proposed P4.5 trillion national budget for 2021 on time, a day after he warned he would intervene to resolve the House leadership dispute that he was running late. approval of the bill of expenses.

In Proclamation No. 1027, Duterte set the special session for October 13-16.

The presidential proclamation was intended “to resume congressional deliberations on the proposed national budget for 2021 and to avoid further delays in its early approval in accordance with the Constitution and applicable laws, rules and regulations.”

The president also wrote separate letters to the President of the Senate, Vicente Sotto III and to the spokesman Alan Peter Cayetano, to certify the urgency of the immediate enactment of the budget law “to strengthen efforts to respond more effectively to the COVID pandemic. -19 and support initiatives towards national economic recovery. “

The Constitution allows the president to convene a special session “at any time.”

Duterte’s measure was aimed primarily at the House, as the Senate had not suspended its sessions and its budget hearings were continuing as scheduled.

On Tuesday of this week, Cayetano suspended the Chamber session after the approval of the budget in second reading due to the objections of some deputies.

Sotto said the president’s measure “emphasizes his call for the House to pass the budget in third reading and give the Senate time to study, review and approve the bill. [national budget]. “

The presidential proclamation ended speculation about what Duterte meant when he said he would “solve the problem” in the House, referring to the leadership dispute between Cayetano and Marinduque’s representative, Lord Allan Velasco.

Under a “gentlemen’s agreement” of shared terms, Velasco was supposed to take over as president on October 14 after the budget was approved at third reading. But Cayetano and his allies have been trying to circumvent the deal to keep him as Spokesperson.

With an exasperated tone and a grim appearance, the president appeared on national television Thursday night promising to resolve the impasse.

“I am not threatening you,” he said, addressing members of the House. “I’m saying that if you don’t solve the problem, I will solve it for you.”

In a Facebook post in response to the call for a special session, Cayetano said Friday that he was relying on the “wisdom of the president on how to address budget-related issues.”

He thanked Duterte “for his continued confidence in allowing Congress to pass the General Appropriations Bill free from the specter of politicking and intrigue that we had originally tried to avoid.”

“In the meantime, Congress will continue to work and prepare for the speedy passage of this measure and to ensure that it will be responsive and relevant to the government’s overall recovery efforts by 2021,” Cayetano said.

Velasco said that the “march orders from the president to President Cayetano are clear: reopen Congress to its members” after the “unceremonious termination” of budget debates and the “highly questionable” suspension of the House sessions.

‘Safe and secure plenary room’

Supporting the physical attendance of all House members, he said House leaders should prepare a “safe and secure plenary room” so that everyone can participate in the deliberations rather than a “small committee of selected friends” that the president had assigned to create the final version of the budget measure.

Albay’s representative, Joey Salceda, said the president’s action indicated that “he was not taking any chances with the budget schedule.”

“He wants it to be passed without delay, and rightly so, because we cannot afford to delay the most important economic stimulus measure, the 2021 budget,” he said.

Other lawmakers had urged Cayetano to reopen sessions or suggested convening a special session, warning of an eventual rebuilding of the 2020 budget.

Earlier on Friday, it circulated among its members a motion for a resolution calling for the resumption of House sessions to continue budget deliberations.

He said that the abrupt termination of budget debates on House Bill No. 7727, or the proposed General Appropriations Law, violated House rules and that the unilateral suspension of sessions did not conform to the legislative calendar established by both the House and the Senate.

Oriental Mindoro representative Salvador Leachon said the Oct. 6 suspension was illegal because it contravened the congressional calendar and lacked the consent of the Senate as an equal chamber in the legislative branch.

The resolution said the hasty approval of the 2021 budget at second reading also violated House rules, as it passed without going through the required period of amendments.

Pandemic response provisions

Leachon said that some members of the minority bloc, representatives of party lists, the PDP-Laban and the Nationalist People’s Coalition, as well as some members of the National Unity Party (NUP) have signed the resolution.

The representative of Cavite Elpidio Barzaga, Jr., president of the NUP, also supported calls for the resumption of sessions, noting that there were no provisions in the 2020 budget to respond to the pandemic, such as the purchase of protective equipment. personnel and the construction of health institutions.

Opposition representative Edcel Lagman, who had also proposed a special session, said the president’s decision was a “reprimand” from Cayetano.

Earlier, he urged the president to “unequivocally enforce” the shared term agreement that Duterte himself had negotiated last year and reiterated last month, adding that the agreement “must be respected and honored.”

“The president should avoid any ambivalent language or mystical messages that may be subject to different interpretations,” Lagman said.

“The tradition, although flawed, is that the president is elected in Malacañang, and the anointing is simply confirmed by the president’s allies in the House of Representatives in an unopposed roll call vote,” he said.

Commenting on the president’s statement Thursday that he would “solve” the House problem, Senator Panfilo Lacson said he did not see any “wrongdoing if he intervenes.”

‘Direct hand’

“After all, anything that has to do with advancing the national interest must involve the president,” he said.

“Obviously, he sent a clear message to exercise his option to do whatever it takes, including taking a ‘direct’ hand in solving the problem of public speaking,” Lacson added.

Sen. Sonny Angara, chairman of the Senate finance committee, said the president’s statement Thursday would “encourage” members of the House to pass the National Spending Program at the third and final reading as soon as possible.

“[This will] allow the Senate to start its plenary debates also in compliance with the Constitution, ”Angara said in a Viber message. —WITH A REPORT FROM MARLON RAMOS

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