Congress eyes to ratify P4.5-T 2021 budget on Wednesday, says Yap

ACT-CIS Party-list Rep. Eric Yap. Image from his Facebook

MANILA, Philippines — The Congress plans to ratify the proposed P4.5-trillion national budget for 2021 on Wednesday, according to House appropriations committee chair Rep. Eric Yap.

Yap said in an interview with reporters that lawmakers are just finalizing other details of the proposed budget for next year.

“Bukas magkakaroon kami ng bicam ulit. Pagkatapos noon isasara na namin. ‘Yung report ilalabas na namin bukas and then sa hapon iraratify na po ng both House and Senate,” he said.

(We will have another bicam tomorrow. We will wrap it up after that. We will release the report tomorrow and then have it ratified by both the House and Senate in the afternoon.)

“Syempre kailangan lang namin ‘yung mga members na maging okay din sila pero as far as I am concerned and Chair Sonny, we are committed na i-ratify na po bukas. May encoding days pa po kasi ‘yan eh, para kapag na-encode natin, maprint pa po natin ng almost 7 to 10 days,” he added, referring to Sen. Sonny Angara, chair of the Senate committee on finance.

(Of course we need other bicam members to be okay with it but as far as I and Chair Sonny are concerned, we are committed to ratify it tomorrow. We need to allot time for encoding, so that after encoding is done, it can be printed after almost 7 to 10 days.)

He said he will also speak with Angara to make sure that the spending bill will indeed be ratified by both houses of Congress on Wednesday.

However, he added that the schedule may still change.

“Pwede maging Thursday (It can be Thursday). The latest is Thursday but our target is tomorrow,” said Yap.

Yap earlier said that lawmakers will try to submit the 2021 General Appropriations Bill to President Rodrigo Duterte for signing before Christmas.

He said that the target ratification of the budget on Wednesday aligns with the target submission of the bill to Duterte before the holidays.

“Pasok na pasok po. Ang pinaghahandaan po namin, pinipilit namin mahabol ng December 18. It will depend talaga sa printing office eh, kasi we all know sa printing office ngayon maraming nagka-COVID so skeletal sila,” he said.

(It aligns with the schedule. We are trying to have it on December 18. It will depend on the printing office, because we all know that the printing office has skeletal staff because of COVID-19.)

“Kung kakayanin po ng seven days printing, papasok po kami ng December 18 po ‘yung libro. If not naman po before Christmas pa rin po, maybe December 21, ganun po,” he added.

(If it can be printed in seven days, we can have the copy printed in December. If not, maybe it can be done on December 21.)

Before this, Angara also earlier expressed hopes that the Senate and House will be able to ratify the proposed budget this week.

JPV