Senate will get budget on time, but no additional funding for DOH or others – House

MANILA, Philippines – House leaders assured President Rodrigo Duterte and senators on Saturday that they would submit the $ 4.5 trillion national budget for 2021 to the Senate on time, but indicated the biggest problem was a lack of additional funding . that some agencies like the Department of Health (DOH) were looking for.

On Saturday, Malacañang pressed the House to present the budget to the Senate before October 28 to give senators “enough time” to review it and for Congress to approve it well in advance for the president’s signature.

“The Chief Executive has articulated on many occasions the importance of the timely approval of the budget, given that we are in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic where we need resources to finance government interventions to mitigate the adverse effects of the virus.” Presidential spokesman Harry Roque said in a statement.

In a phone interview Saturday, ACT-CIS representative Eric Yap, chairman of the House appropriations committee, assured the Palace that the Senate would receive the “electronic copy” of House Bill No. 7727, or the General Appropriations Bill (GAB), on October 28.

“The October 28 date is fine, it’s still safe,” Yap said.

Departmental assignments

He said that the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Lord Allan Velasco, had already informed the Speaker of the Senate, Vicente Sotto III, that the House would do its “best effort” to comply with the Senate’s request to obtain the budget bill. for the end of the month.

Yap said “by hook or by crook” the Senate will get it on the promised date.

The “Rebound, restart and recovery” budget of 4,506 billion pesos gave the largest allocations to the following departments: Education, 754.4 billion pesos; Public Works and Highways, P667.3 billion; Interior and Local Government, P246.1 billion; National Defense, P209.1 billion; Health, P203.1 billion; Social Welfare and Development, P171.2 billion; Transportation, P143.6 billion; Agriculture, P66.4 billion; and Labor and Employment, P27.5 billion. The judiciary will receive P43.5 billion.

A “small committee” comprised of Yap, House Majority Leader Martin Romualdez, House Vice Speaker Doy Leachon, and 11 other representatives were tasked with receiving agency-initiated amendments through October 19.

Yap emphasized that House members can no longer present amendments to this committee.

“It’s a bit annoying if you see on the news that the delays are due to the congressmen going to insert their own bills. They can check it out. Congressmen can no longer do that, ”he said.

The review of the amendments is expected to be completed on Tuesday. The encryption is expected to be ready by Oct. 28, when the House will transmit the GAB copy to the Senate, Yap said.

More serious concern

Printing of the budget bill will take another 10 days at the National Printing Office, Yap said.

Some of the amendments were mere corrections of spelling and clerical errors, or changes, he said.

But what was more serious than this were amendments in the form of multi-agency requests for additional funding, according to Velasco, who spoke to reporters shortly after the House passed the budget Friday night.

“We will try to find other funds that we can use there in health, education, especially in ICT (information and communication technology) where we need to improve our broadband network for the education of our students,” he said.

Velasco also mentioned the need for additional Air Force helicopters, which could be used to deliver aid and goods to the provinces during the pandemic.

According to Yap, the health department is requesting the most additional funding – P17 billion.

“It is not just for vaccines (COVID-19) but for other valid items. The problem is where will we get the funds from? So that is what we will study in his amendment, ”Yap said.

During budget deliberations, lawmakers criticized the allocation of P2.5 billion funds for COVID-19 vaccines, saying it was inappropriate to immunize at least 20 million Filipinos as ordered by the president.

“Many agencies wrote to us asking for additional funds,” Yap said. “DOH is asking for P17 billion more. So where do we get that from? We are not going to complete this amount, it will continue to come from that (approved amount of P4.5 billion). ”

He said funding for nearly all departments was slashed and he didn’t want to give “false hope” to those asking for additional funding.

Marikina City Representative Stella Quimbo, a minority legislator who is a member of the committee, noted that DOH needed at least P12 billion to vaccinate 20 million poor Filipinos at a cost of P691 per dose.

“The problem is that the budget has a fixed amount. So even if you want to add more, it should still add up to P 4.506 trillion … That will be the job of the little committee. There must be clear parameters on where to add and where to cut, ”Quimbo said in an interview with ABS-CBN’s“ Teleradyo ”.

Agusan Rep. Lawrence Fortun said the House-approved budget bill was not perfect, but its passage prevented a possible new budget next year.

“There is still scope to address issues, such as substantial deficiencies in DOH’s budget for COVID-19 response, significant inadequacy of the Department’s budget for self-study modules, and significant cut in allocations for DSWD, to name a few, “he said in a statement.

“The small committee, and then the bicameral conference committee must address these critical concerns,” Fortun said.

Velasco told reporters late Friday that the House had approved a “constitutional budget” without a “pig.”

Illegal insertions

Despite assurances of a pork-free budget that would be submitted on time, Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon believed Saturday that there were still illegal inserts that he vowed to challenge.

In a radio interview, Drilon said the Senate faced a “more daunting task” of examining GAB 2021 amid suspicions that the House had inserted funding elements to satisfy the “requests” of its members.

“What unleashed the chaos in the House leadership was the unequal allocations in the legislative districts, so it follows that they will try to disperse the bulge of funds among members. The Senate will now have to verify which element is correct or redundant, ”he said.

—With reports from Leila B. Salaverria and Melvin Gascon

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