A resolution requesting the Senate to return to the House of Representatives the budget reform bill is going around the lower chamber, lawmakers confirmed on Thursday.
But a source, speaking in private, said the resolution was an “indirect way” of Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s leadership “to deliver a message to Malacañang” that “they are against the cash-based budget system” of the Department of Budget and Management (DBM).
“It’s an indirect way to deliver a message to Malacañang. Paramdam, by the GMA (Arroyo’s initials) leadership that they are against the CBBudget (cash-based budget); remember the bill was certified urgent by the Palace,” the source said.
House appropriations committee chair Rep. Karlo Nograles also confirmed this.
“Magiging implikasyon din po nitong pagbawi sa budget reform bill ay ‘yung hindi pagsusuporta sa cash-based budgeting for 2019,” he told reporters.
Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman has also confirmed the “multiparty-endorsed” resolution.
Nograles earlier condemned the cash-based budgeting system of the DBM, which resulted in the slashed budgets of some key agencies.
READ: Nograles questions ‘much lower’ 2019 proposed national budget
A copy of the resolution a source sent to INQUIRER.net showed that the House is recalling House Bill 7302 or the Budget Reform Act from the Senate “in order for the House of Representatives to introduce further perfecting amendments thereto.”
“Napagkasunduan ng myembro ng kamara na bawiin ang suporta sa budget reform bill at… irecall ang budget reform bill sa Senado para tuluyang pag-aralan muli ng House of Representatives,” Nograles told reporters.
Nograles said they are recalling the budget reform bill because it would result in the institutionalization of the cash-based budgeting system.
“‘Yung cash-based budgeting na ito, ito ‘yung parang magiging resulta ng budget reform bill… Sample ng magiging implikasyon ng pagpasa ng budget reform bill,” he explained.
“Ang magiging implikasyon pala nito (cash-based system) ay slash, slash, slash,” Nograles said, noting that they want to revert back to obligations-based budgeting.
The lower chamber approved HB 7302 on final reading last March 20, 2018, and it was consequently transmitted to the Senate on March 22.
Members of the House continue to strongly oppose DBM’s proposed 2019 cash-based national budget, lamenting that ongoing projects of some departments and their respective districts might get derailed.
READ: Lawmakers question DBM’s shift to cash-based budget system
During the Department of Public Works and Highways’ (DPWH) budget defense before the House committee on appropriations on Thursday, Lagman rallied all his colleagues to “unite in supporting a realistic budget of the DPWH in order to make a truism of the oft-repeated invocation that infrastructure is the engine of growth and help pursue the government’s ‘BBB’ (Build, Build, Build) agenda.”
Lagman called for the restoration of the cuts and augmentation in the DPWH 2019 budget, noting that it was one of the major casualties of the DBM’s cash-based budgeting “with a slash amounting to P 93.343 billion.”
“One of the major casualties of the budgetary calisthenics now known as “cash-based budgeting” is the DPWH with a slash amounting to P93.343 billion broken down as follows: P90.182 billion– Capital Outlay and P3.781 billion – Maintenance and Other Operating Expenses,” the lawmaker said.
The reduction, he said, includes a drastic slash on locally funded projects. /muf