Sotto assures Senate will grill 2019 budget amid ‘pork’

Senate President Vicente “Tito” Sotto III. INQUIRER.net file photo / CATHY MIRANDA

Senate President Vicente Sotto III assured on Tuesday that his colleagues will scrutinize the proposed 2019 national budget once it reaches the Senate floor.

Sotto made this assurance following allegations that the national budget for next year contains some P55 billion in “pork barrel,” or funds that would go to pet projects of lawmakers.

“Before it becomes the GAA (General Appropriations Act), which is the law already, we will scrutinize it the way the Senate scrutinizes it,” he told reporters in an interview.

READ: House leaders bicker over ‘pork’

“Nothing is written in stone as far as the Senate scrutinizes it. So kung ano man ‘yung ilalagay sa House, o idadagdag, o ibabawas, lahat ‘yun pagdating dito, pinag-aaralan din muna namin ‘yun,” he said.

(Whatever will be added or removed in the House, all of it we will study first when it gets here.)

Sotto assured that the Senate will not turn a blind eye on the proposed national budget, noting that it is the “single most important piece of legislation” that Congress has to pass every year. /jpv

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