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The chairman of the House Appropriations Committee promised on Friday to convey the P4.5 trillion General Appropriations Act (GAA) of 2021 to the Senate on time, and to exclude the possibility of a reworked budget.
Panel chair Eric Yap said the lower house will be able to comply with the Senate’s request for the 2021 budget proposal by Oct. 28.
“I cannot embarrass our Speaker. It will be on October 28. But it is not the hard copy. Everything we present to the NPO [National Printing Office]We would also give it to the Senate, which is printed only on white paper, ”Yap said.
Yap also denied allegations that House members will insert their individual amendments into the budget, saying there are only amendments coming from government agencies.
The lower house is expected to pass the 2021 national budget in the second, third and last reading on Friday afternoon or evening at the earliest.
Earlier, Senator Panfilo Lacson warned that the 1987 Constitution prohibits amendments after the third and final reading of the bills.
With the theme “Restart, rebound and recover: investing for resilience and sustainability”, the 2021 spending plan is higher than this year’s budget by 9.9 percent and equivalent to 21.8 percent of domestic product gross (GDP).
By class of expenditures, personnel services will receive the majority of next year’s allocation at 29.2 percent, reaching P1.32 trillion. Capital expenditures will rank second with P920.5 billion, representing 20.4 percent of the proposed budget.
Meanwhile, maintenance, operating and other expenses will amount to P699.4 billion, debt burden to P560.2 billion, support to government-owned and controlled companies P157.5 billion and tax expenditures with P14.5 billion. The 10 agencies that will receive the largest portions of the proposed budget for 2021 are: Education Sector, Department of Public Works and Highways, Department of the Interior and Local Government, Department of National Defense, Department of Health, Department of Social Welfare and Development, the Department of Transportation, Department of Agriculture, Judiciary, and Department of Labor and Employment.
