Lagman: Palace should act on House rejection of proposed 2019 budget

Rep. Edcel Lagman INQUIRER file photo

Malacañang has to think twice in saying that it would not “cave in” to the desire of the House of Representatives to revert to an obligation-based budgeting system, Albay 1st District Rep. Edcel Lagman warned on Tuesday.

In a statement, Lagman said Malacañang has to act on the lower chamber’s rejection of the Department of Budget and Management’s (DBM) proposed P3.757-trillion cash-based budget for 2019 “to foreclose the adverse consequences of a reenacted budget on the Executive.”

Lagman also said Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque’s pronouncement on Monday that a reenacted budget favors the Executive department was a “sour grape” for a possible reenactment of the 2018 General Appropriations Act (GAA).

Roque has said they would not give in to the lower House’s stance.

“We are not scared of a reenacted budget and the congressmen should ask themselves what will happen to their pet projects under a reenacted budget. It will be Malacañang that will determine which budget will be implemented. I don’t think they want that,” he said.

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But leaders of the House were also not backing down from their move to scrap DBM’s cash-based budget, saying this has led to the slashing of funds from key government agencies and programs.

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Lagman, meanwhile, pointed out that no administration would welcome a reenacted budget because a “reenactment is a rebuke of the President who has submitted to the Congress his annual budget proposal as contained in the National Expenditure Program [NEP].”

This could also “derail the administration’s ambitious ‘Build, build and build’ infrastructure program,” he added.

“Appropriations for capital outlay already implemented cannot be repeated and would have to be used for new projects subject to congressional oversight,” Lagman said.

“The President’s restructuring of the reenacted budget is not absolute,” he further noted, saying the administration’s proposals on new projects and programs could not be implemented pending the reenactment of the GAA for 2019.

Lagman, a former chair of the House appropriations panel who was also a Budget undersecretary, explained that under a cash-based budgeting, only projects and programs that are implementable for completion and payment within the fiscal year and during the three-month extension period after the yearend are included for funding in the GAA.

Meanwhile, under the obligation-based budgeting, the implementation, completion, and payment of the projects and programs in the GAA could be made beyond the yearend provided they are obligated within the fiscal year by contract or other modes of incurring an obligation.

Majority Leader and Camarines Sur 1st District Rep. Rolando Andaya, Jr. has dismissed any plan to go for a reenacted 2019 budget, a possibility raised by Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno and Senate President Vicente Sotto III. /jpv

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