THERE will be a reenacted national budget for 2019 because the Senate is determined to do its job in going through the P3.757-trillion national appropriation for 2019 already approved by the House of Representatives, but it will be for only about a month, Senate Majority Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri said last Wednesday.
The House approved the budget bill last Tuesday and said it would send it to the Senate on Monday, Nov. 26. Speaker Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said the Senate could approve it in December so President Duterte could sign the consolidated bill before the year ends, in time for the start of the release of funds in January.
That’s not enough time for the senators to really go through the bill, Zubiri said. Many of the senators, notably Panfilo Lacson, Ralph Recto, and Chiz Escudero, are reported determined to go through the bill which some suspect still contains substantial “pork barrel” funds which the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional in 2013.
The Senate could devote its six session days left in December and possibly add extra session days before it can approve the bill on third and final reading. A bicameral conference committee could meet during the Christmas recess which starts December 14, but it will be only in January, when sessions resume, that the Congress can finally approve the bill and President Duterte can sign it.
For the first month of 2019, the reenacted 2018 budget will have to be used to carry out the normal operations of the government, especially payment of salaries of employees. But no major project is likely to be launched this early in the year, so there is no basis for fears of possible misuse of funds under a reenacted budget by the administration. The new budget for 2019 should be ready by February, 2019.
Fears against reenacted budgets arise from abuses in the past when some administrations took advantage of the situation to make use of unspent funds. It is said that the unspent funds now total the huge amount of R1.3 trillion, dating back to the 2015 budget. There is fear that some of this amount might find its way into the election campaign of some administration candidates. We hope not.
We are more concerned with the need to have our senators go through 2019 national budget as the constitutional check on congressmen who may have managed to insert funds for certain favorite projects – actually “pork barrel funds” – hidden in lump-sum items. The extra time sought by Senator Zubiri and Senate President Vicente Sotto II should enable them to really review the national budget for 2019 to make it – as much as is possible under the circumstances – truly responsive to the needs of the nation.
