House vows to slash untimely budget items

Congressman Eric Go Yap, Party List – ACT-CIS (Photo from House of Representatives website)

MANILA, Philippines — The House of Representatives will slash the budget of government agencies that cannot explain why they should get the people’s money despite the emergence of more important and more pressing public concerns.

Amid the Makabayan bloc’s warning that the government has submitted a “supersized election budget designed to bankroll administration bets,” appropriations panel chair and ACT-CIS Rep. Eric Yap said the House would not allow this to happen.

“The Makabayan bloc’s concerns are valid,” Yap said. “We won’t let the budget be used as funds for the election.”

“Like in the case of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-Elcac), they should justify what they will use it for,” he added.

Yap noted that NTF-Elcac, notorious for making false accusations and violating civil rights, asked for P28-billion funding while the “Build Build Build” program, which only completed a handful of projects, was allocated P1 trillion.

“Is the NTF-Elcac deserving of a higher budget? Then show us your programs. Why P28 billion? How will you use it? How can it help in the COVID-19 response?” Yap said.

At the same time, the government’s allocation for health and medical responses to COVID-19 got lower sums, like the Research Institute of Tropical Medicine, whose budget was even slashed by P170 million.“If [the budget request] can help in the pandemic response, why not? But if not, we have to slash the budget and give it to items which will benefit Filipinos more,” Yap said.

Only 35 calendar days

The appropriations panel will begin on Thursday its deliberations on the spending bill with the interagency Development Budget Coordination Committee explaining the bases for the 2022 allocations.

With deliberations at the committee level expected to be finished by Sept. 16, Yap said the House only has 35 calendar days to pass the country’s biggest appropriations measure in history before it goes on break in October.

Yap said that while adverse findings of the Commission on Audit (COA) would likely be brought up by lawmakers, the House could not linger on the audit reports.

“The COA is there to conduct an audit of the agencies. So if they find anything irregular, they can file a case before the Ombudsman. But for us, the COA reports should not be a reason for the budget to be delayed,” he said.

“So if we will scrutinize all COA reports, I don’t think we will make it on time. At the end of the day, the people of the Philippines will lose if the budget is not passed on time,” Yap said.