House of Representatives approves national budget P4.5-T before stalled by row of speakers

The House of Representatives on Friday approved the P4.506 trillion budget for 2021, which the Duterte administration said would provide it with the resources to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.

By roll call, 257 House members approved House Bill 7727, or the General Appropriations Bill (GAB) of 2021, on third and final reading. Only the six members of the Makabayan bloc voted against the bill.

The vote came at the end of the Oct. 13-16 special session called by President Duterte to avoid a delay in passing the spending measure and avoid a re-enactment of the budget.

The president called the special session when a leadership dispute between ousted president Alan Peter Cayetano and the new president, Marinduque representative Lord Allan Jay Velasco, threatened to halt approval of the national budget.

Marikina’s representative, Stella Luz Quimbo, told the Inquirer last week that a reworked budget would cost the economy P1.23 trillion in waived infrastructure spending and P67 billion in unfunded programs to handle the pandemic.

ACT CIS Rep. Eric Yap, chairman of the House appropriations committee, promised to transmit an “electronic copy” of the approved budget to the Senate by Oct. 28 so that senators would have “a few weeks” to study it.

“They will resume the session on November 9, so I would like to put on the record that there is no reason to re-enact or delay the budget for fiscal year 2021,” Yap said.

A small committee was created to receive and resolve amendments made by government agencies before the budget’s approval at second reading on Friday.

The committee has until October 19 to do this. You then have another five days later to “code” the amendments into the House’s final version of the spending bill before it goes to the National Printing Office for printing.

The committee members are House Majority Leader Martin Romualdez, House appropriations committee chair Eric Yap, Rep. Michael John Duavit, Rep. Joet Garcia, Rep. Joey Salceda, Rep. Eileen Ermita. -Buhain, Representative Bernadette Herrera Dy, Representative Sharon Garin, Senior Deputy Doy Leachon, Deputy Xavier Jesus Romualdo, Deputy Edgar Sarmiento, Deputy Luisa Cuaresma, Deputy Edcel Lagman and Quimbo. The last two are representatives of the minority and independent.

The House ended the 12-agency budget debates in a marathon session that began at 10 a.m. Thursday and lasted until after 2 a.m. Friday.

These agencies were: Department of Education, Department of Tourism, National Security Council, Department of the Interior and Local Government, Office of Internal Revenue, Commission on Human Rights;

Department of Information and Communications Technology, National Intelligence Coordination Agency, Department of Agency, Department of National Defense, Department of Health, and Office of Presidential Communications Operations.

Debates over the budgets of the Foreign Ministry and Congress concluded on Friday.

Senate President Vicente Sotto III said he had asked Velasco to transmit the budget bill passed by the House to the Senate by October 28, and that Velasco promised his “best effort.”

The Senate decided to resume session on November 9 to address the spending bill in plenary and pass it at an earlier date.

In a statement, Yap said that the copy that will be transmitted to the Senate will not be a “hard copy” from the National Printing Office, but a printed copy on white bond paper.

“I cannot make my Speaker lose his face. It will be on October 28. But it will not be a hard copy. Whatever we present to the NPO (for printing), we will give (the Senate) the same copy, which is just a hard copy on white paper, ”he said. Now if they (the senators) are still complaining, there is nothing more I can say about it. I give up, my hands gave up. “

The vice president of the House of Representatives and the representative of the first district of Oriental Mindoro, Doy Leachon, said that Velasco would be transparent in the approval of the budget.

“It is actually the Spokesman’s commitment. That is the feeling that is brewing among the members. That is why we are taking special care to ensure that districts are treated fairly according to their needs, ”said Leachon, a Velasco ally.

He added that in the composition of the small committee to review the amendments initiated by the agency, Velasco wanted “to instill in the people that the Spokesperson is always transparent regarding the approval of the budget.”

Senator Panfilo Lacson reminded House leaders on Friday that introducing amendments to the spending bill after its passage in third reading would violate the Constitution.

Senators cannot take the budget measure in plenary session until the House has approved it in third reading and transmitted it to the Senate.

Sotto said that if the Senate receives the budget approved by the House “before November, most likely we can pass it in third reading before the first week of December.”

“Hopefully, the bicam won’t take long,” he said, referring to the House and Senate conference to reconcile the differences between the two versions of the GAB.

Senator Juan Edgardo Angara, chairman of the Senate finance committee, noted that the Senate would generally need at least a week to prepare the Senate committee report and begin plenary debates.

He noted that Yap previously said that the earliest they could present the budget to the Senate was Nov. 2, but that lawmakers would seek ways to do so even sooner.

“Maybe the NPO could take less than 10 days to print the GAB,” he told the Inquirer.

“On the part of the Senate, we are moving our sessions forward to ensure that there is more time for plenary discussions and this year’s bicameral conference. And as is customary, we have also extended the sessions from morning to night for budget discussions, ”Angara said.

Former House Vice President Luis Raymund Villafuerte challenged Velasco “to inform the public about the final version of the House-approved version of the GAB 2021 prior to its approval by the bicameral conference committee to ensure there will be no insertions. illegal or parking ‘funds like what had happened in the 2019 budget bill. “

“We must remain vigilant and make Velasco fulfill its stated commitment to ensure that there will be no redistribution of funds from the 2021 budget approved by the Chamber,” said Villafuerte, an ally of Cayetano.

In a statement, the Camarines Sur second district lawmaker echoed senators’ fears that last-minute inserts could be made if transmission of the bill from the House to the Senate is delayed.

He added that “these suspicions were heightened by reports that former representative (Camarines Sur 1st District) Rolando Andaya has been actively participating behind the scenes in budget deliberations under Velasco’s newly installed speaker.”

He said that Andaya was the “architect of the post-bicameral committee’s insertions in the 2019 budget,” which caused its delayed approval and resulted in the reactivation of the 2018 budget.

“The Chamber, under then-President Gloria Arroyo, realigned around P 75 billion in funds for projects that were ultimately vetoed by the President,” he said.

Yap denied Villafuerte’s accusations and said: “Andaya is not interfering.”

Leachon emphasized that there will be no illegal insertions in the 2021 national budget once it is approved in third reading.

“Indeed, it is the Spokesman’s commitment. That is the growing feeling of the members, so we must be careful that the districts are treated fairly according to their needs … That has been clear from the beginning, “he told reporters.

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