Difficult to grant budget hike requests of district congressmen for 2020 — Ungab

MANILA, Philippines — House appropriations chair and Davao City 3rd District Rep. Isidro Ungab is not keen on granting the budget hike requests of some congressmen whose districts’ budget were slashed in 2019.

Ungab, just like Deputy Speaker for Finance and Camarines Sur Rep. Luis Raymund Villafuerte, admitted Tuesday that some House members have been appealing for an increase in their budgetary allocations for 2020 since some of them had received cuts in this year’s spending plan.

READ: Some congressmen ‘unhappy’ over district projects in 2020 budget–Villafuerte

Although he “sympathized” with the lawmakers, Ungab said the restoration of their budget would be difficult to include under the 2020 General Appropriations Bill (GAB).

“I appealed to them, kinausap ko ‘yung mga lumapit sa akin na kung pwede ‘wag muna nating isama ‘yan sa 2020,” Ungab said in an interview.

“Malaki masyado kasi kung magbawas ka ng P1 billion to P10 billion or let’s say P70 billion, e hindi mo alam kung anong department mo kukunin ‘yun. It will really hurt the operations of the department.”

The appropriations chair said he would just call for a meeting or hearing with the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) to clarify the concerns of congressmen.

“So we start from there and we look at the possible solutions, possible funding… but not in this budget, mahirap talaga kung ipasok,” Ungab added.

Ungab said congressmen’s budgetary appeals could be resolved through the passage of a supplemental budget. But this is just one of the possible options, he said.

“We will study kung paano because ‘yung mga na-veto naman, nandun ‘yun, naging unappropriated siya. So it’s possible that we can tap them later,” he added.

On Monday, Villafuerte said some congressmen were unhappy over projects listed for their districts in the proposed P4.1-trillion national budget for 2020. He added that congressmen were also concerned over the distribution of funds to districts.

Although the House is allowed to amend the National Expenditure Program submitted by the DBM, Villafuerte said: “It doesn’t mean there are complaints, there are amendments.”

The House appropriations committee aims to finish the budget briefings on Friday and prepare its committee report by Monday, in line with the chamber’s target to approve the GAB on final reading by October 4.   /muf