The Presidential Legislative Liaison Office said yesterday that President Duterte will sign the P4.1-trillion national budget for this year on Monday, Jan. 6.
“Yes,” PLLO Secretary Adelino Sitoy said, adding that the signing will be held in Malacañang. Sitoy did not say if the President had vetoed any provision in the national budget.
Acting Budget Secretary Wendel Avisado also confirmed the signing of the budget. He likewise said he does not know if Duterte had vetoed any provision in the budget.
“I do not know if the President is going to veto any item in the enrolled General Appropriations Bill,” Avisado said. “He has the final say regardless of our recommendation and we cannot second guess him so it’s better to just wait,” he added.
Presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo had earlier said that the President will sign the national budget in the first week of this month.
The Palace official assured that the President would scrutinize the budget submitted by Congress and would veto and unconstitutional line item.
Last month, Duterte signed the measure extending the validity of the 2019 national budget until Dec. 31, 2020, days after the Congress ratified the proposed 2020 national budget.
The President only signed the P3.757-billion 2019 national budget in April 2019 due to delays in Congress over allegations of “pork barrel” insertions. Duterte vetoed P95.3 billion in items of appropriations in the details of the Department of Public Works and Highways programs and projects which were not within the programmed priorities.
Last September, Duterte certified as urgent the proposed 2020 national budget to avoid a repeat of a reenacted budget that “wreaked havoc” on the economic program of the administration, affected the timely delivery of basic services to the people, and slowed the country’s growth during the first quarter of 2019. (Argyll Cyrus B. Geducos)
