MANILA, Philippines – House Majority Leader Neptali Gonzales II said that the bloc is still studying the option to redefine savings and make the redefinition “retroactive,” in a bid to cure the Supreme Court’s decision striking down President Aquino’s Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP).
AP file photo
In a press briefing on Tuesday, Gonzales was referring to Budget Secretary Florencio “Butch” Abad’s draft bill seeking to make the provisions of their bill redefining savings as “retroactive” and “curative.” The bill has yet to be filed in Congress.
Abad wants the Cabinet’s bill redefining savings as a “priority measure,” especially as the Supreme Court ruled the practice of using savings before the year end under DAP as unconstitutional.
“We are still studying it. We haven’t really looked into it,” Gonzales said in Filipino during the press briefing.
According to Abad’s bill, savings is redefined as “portions or balances of any programmed items of appropriation in the appropriation laws, identified as either a program, including any activity covered under it, or project, which have not been released or obligated as a result of any of the following: discontinuance or abandonment… of program; non-commencement of the program; and decreased cost realized from the implementation…”
SC’s DAP decision declared as unconstitutional, the “withdrawal of unobligated allotments from the implementing agencies, and the declaration of the withdrawn unobligated allotments and unreleased appropriations as savings prior to the end of the fiscal year and without complying with the statutory definition of savings contained in the General Appropriations Acts.”
Abad in the bill wants to make the provisions of the bill “retroactive and curative in nature… to dispel any doubt as to this legislative intent.”
Opposition member Navotas Rep. Toby Tiangco in a previous statement said Abad’s redefinition of savings is meant to “circumvent” the SC ruling.
“All previous acts relating to the definition of savings, the rules on augmentation and other related concepts, as well as the use and release of the unprogrammed fund made, applied, consummated, executed, undertaken, and implemented prior to the passage of this Act are hereby confirmed, ratified and validated,” the bill read.
“We will see if that is allowed or not,” Gonzales said in Filipino.
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