Senate seeks Palace help vs House budget changes

Senate President Vicente Sotto III at the Senate Session hall (File photo by EDWIN BACASMAS / Philippine Daily Inquirer)

Senators have asked Malacañang officials to help ensure that congressmen does not make unauthorized changes in the government’s spending bill for 2019, according to Senate President Vicente Sotto III.

If it is true that congressmen moved about P79 billion after both chambers agreed on a final report, Sotto said he would not sign the bill for transmittal to the President for his signature.

“It may be that the the total of the proposed [General Appropriations Act] is correct. But inside, it’s as if the furniture has been moved,” Sotto said at the Usapang Senado program on radio station dwIZ.

Report needed

Sotto said changes made after ratification of the report were not allowed by the Constitution and the government would be forced to operate on a reenacted budget.

Asked about the House’s denial of any changes in the budget, he said the House should just send its report to him and he would sign it, if there had been no changes.

Sotto said he had spoken with Malacañang officials to ask them to stop the House from introducing changes in the ratified bicameral report.

“We informed the executive department that as much as possible, they should talk to the leadership of the House and tell them to maintain what we had passed,” he said.

He talked to Benjamin Diokno, former budget secretary and now Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas chief, Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III, Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea and Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles, he said.

Doomed

He also relayed his position to President Duterte during the visit of Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad to Malacañang last week, he added.

He also said the Senate’s finance committee chair, Sen. Loren Legarda, was in touch with her House counterparts and the House was aware of the Senate’s position.

Earlier, Sen. Panfilo Lacson said the budget bill was “doomed” after Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo realigned funds under the Health Facilities Enhancement Program (HFEP) of the Department of Health to favor her allies.

Lacson said she gave her allies P25 million worth of projects each from the HFEP, while those who had not supported her were given only P8 million.

Because of the delay in the 2019 budget bill, the government has been operating on a reenacted budget this year.