Bayan Muna to go to SC over budget insertions

MANILA, Philippines–Bayan Muna will seek the Supreme Court’s intervention if administration allies move to railroad the approval of the P2.606-trillion budget for 2015 in the House of Representatives this week.

Bayan Muna Rep. Neri Colmenares claimed that the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) has made “midnight insertions” in the 2015 budget coursed through a 100-page annex of corrections that was kept from lawmakers when the budget was passed in the first and second readings.

“How can we pass this budget when the errata that were submitted have not been shown to all of us lawmakers, let alone deliberated upon by Congress? If they insist on this then we have no choice but to go to the Supreme Court,” Colmenares said in a statement.

The House appropriations committee chair, Rep. Isidro Ungab, admitted that the DBM reinserted the errata after withdrawing them a month ago.

“The amendments previously submitted [on] the last day of plenary consideration of the budget were withdrawn by the DBM but were resubmitted during the small committee deliberation on the amendments,” he said.

Eastern Samar Rep. Ben Evardone dismissed concerns about the errata, claiming that this was part of ordinary practice in hammering out a budget in Congress.

“Actually, it only got highlighted because it’s a hot issue. But in past budgetary processes, that was the practice… It’s only a hot issue now because of the Supreme Court decision on the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP),” Evardone claimed.

But Colmenares insisted that the alleged errors were “not mere typographical errors but very substantive and in line with Malacañang’s plan to change the meaning of savings to legalize the unconstitutional DAP.”

“Insiders are also saying that department budgets were bloated without even considering where the funds will come from,” said Colmenares.

House leaders hope to pass on third and final reading the 2015 budget before they go on another break next week to give the Senate ample time to have it passed before the end of this year.

“It seems that the Aquino administration is again trying to pull a fast one not only to legalize the DAP but also to have a huge election budget. As it is, we will do all we can to stop this underhanded move even if we have to go to the Supreme Court,” Colmenares said.

Aside from the insertions through errata, the Makabayan bloc has also questioned the constitutionality of the DBM’s redefinition of “savings” contained in Section 67 of the general appropriations bill because it would allow the President to impound the projects and pool the savings as early as the first quarter of the year, a scheme similar to the DAP system declared illegal by the Supreme Court earlier this year.