Senator Ping Lacson. INQUIRER file photo / EDWIN BACASMAS
MANILA, Philippines — Senator Panfilo Lacson on Wednesday bared at least P73.5 billion worth of “reappropriations” under the proposed P4.5-trillion national budget for 2021.
During the Senate’s first budget hearing, Lacson said his office discovered at least 2,933 items under the 2021 National Expenditure Program (NEP) which have already been included under the 2020 General Appropriations Act (GAA).
“Upon scrutiny of the 2021 NEP and a review of the 2020 GAA we discovered so far, 2,933 items and still counting, amounting to P73.5 billion in reappropriations,” Lacson said.
“Meaning, PAPs (programs and projects) already appropriated under the 2020 GAA are again subject to appropriations under the 2021 NEP,” he added.
“Why is this so? And how did this happen? Primarily because of the constitutional issues involved, I don’t think we should allow this when we finally pass the budget measure before year-end,” he further said.
Budget Secretary Wendel Avisado explained that the reason these items were relisted under the proposed budget for 2021 was because these projects were not completed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“Even as we were trying to have these projects implemented, all of them, we were not able to do so because of COVID,” he said.
According to Avisado, part of the amount that had been allocated for these projects under the 2020 budget were “utilized to respond to the pandemic.”
“He (Public Works and Highways Secretary Mark Villar) submitted a list of projects whose release of funds constituted 15 percent only of the total project cost,” he said.
“The balance, he recommended that they be funded again for next year to complete the project. That’s the reason why there’s a relisting of the projects and the balance was provided precisely to complete the projects as brought out in the GAA of this year,” Avisado added.