Lawmakers from Senate and House convene the Bicameral Conference Committee that will handle the proposed 2023 national budget. The event was held at the Manila Golf and Country Club in Makati city. (Photo by Gabriel P. Lalu/ INQUIRER.net)
MANILA, Philippines — Congress should stop giving ‘parliamentary courtesy’ to the country’s highest officials as a way of shielding them from contentious questions from lawmakers during budget hearings.
Some legislators believe this kind of treatment is outdated.
Legislators who want the tradition to end are ACT Teachers Party-list Representative France Castro, Gabriela Party-list Representative Arlene Brosas, and Kabataan Party-list Representative Raoul Manuel.
They expressed their views on Tuesday after House committee on appropriations quickly ended the deliberations on the proposed 2024 budget for the Office of the President (OP).
“While we were able to manifest here in the budget briefing of OP (Office of the President), unlike in the more notorious act of the committee on appropriations with the OVP (Office of the Vice President), we are still not satisfied because people want answers to issues we raised,” Castro told reporters in an ambush interview.
“This is the only time they can actually answer questions from the people. That’s why we must stop this parliamentary courtesy,” she explained.
“It’s an old tradition, so we in the Makabayan bloc, do not want to give up our rights, obligation, and mandate to the people — that we should scrutinize the budget, even that of the OP,” she said.
For her part, Brosas said the lawmakers’ questions to high government officials in the executive branch are not that hard.
For example, she said they only want to know the details about the letter supposedly provided by the OP to the OVP on the transfer of confidential funds in 2022.
The lawmakers also want to find out the administration’s stand on salary increases, and the measures department heads intend to put in place to solve the problem on rising prices of goods.
“What happened earlier, you saw that parliamentary courtesy was afforded again. No deliberation happened,” Castro noticed.
“Our questions are clear, and honestly, these are simple and easy to answer. That’s why we wanted to have deliberations here with OP’s budget, but they were given courtesy again, and we weren’t answered,” she lamented.
On August 30, the lawmakers also objected to the speed at which members of the House concluded the hearing on the proposed budget for OVP.
They claimed the committee on appropriations was shielding Vice President Sara Duterte from interrogation.
Lawmakers said they had intended to question Duterte about the P125 million confidential funds lodged in OVP for 2022.
They recalled this portion was not part of the original budget crafted during the term of former Vice President Leni Robredo.
For his part, Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin told lawmakers that their concerns about OP’s budget would be addressed.
He gave the guarantee during a brief conversation with committee members at the sidelines of the deliberations.
In the past, several lawmakers have questioned the parliamentary courtesy accorded to the President and Vice President.
In the budget deliberations last 2022, the same set of lawmakers questioned why the OVP’s P2.3 billion budget for 2023 was instantly approved at the committee level.
They believe this supposed practice of “servility” to OP and OVP must end.
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