‘Errata’ sneaked into budget total P4.7 B, not P450 B, says solon

By: DJ Yap - 10 years ago

Davao City Rep. Isidro Ungab. Photo from congress.gov.ph

MANILA, Philippines—The controversial “errata” inserted at the last minute by the Department of Budget and Management in the proposed budget for 2015 account for only P4.7 billion of the P2.6-trillion expenditure program, the chairman of the appropriations committee of the House of Representatives said Tuesday.

Davao City Representative Isidro Ungab denied a claim by the Bayan Muna party-list group that the amendments amount to almost P450 billion, which he said “has absolutely no basis.”

“The issues being created regarding the budget amendments or errata are actually erroneous and misleading,” Ungab said.

Ungab, who also headed the small committee tasked to study the amendments introduced by the DBM and individual representatives, said the DBM’s proposed changes resulted in only “a net effect” of P4.67 billion.

The DBM submitted the so-called errata, or corrections (from ‘erratum,’ the latin word for error), to Ungab’s committee after the House approved the proposed budget on second reading last month. The agency initially withdrew the corrections after they stirred up objections from minority lawmakers but later re-submitted them during the period of amendments.

The House is set to approve the budget on third and last reading on Wednesday, reflecting most of the changes introduced by the DBM without, according to Bayan Muna, going through deliberations by the House.

Some of the significant changes include amounts allocated for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit (P3.28 billion), the Bureau of Customs (P998.8 million), Department of Tourism P296.9 (million), Department of Trade and Industry (P93.7 million), Commission on Human Rights (P34 Million), Commission on Elections (P3 million), Department of Environment and Natural Resources (P53.5 million), Partido State University (P5 million), and the Grassroots Participatory Budgeting Program (P1.790 million).

“There were amendments not approved by the committee such as the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) of P8 billion while there were amendments with amounts reduced like for the Bureau of Customs,” Ungab said.

The DBM had proposed P13.4 billion worth of amendments to be charged to the P140.6 billion Pension and Gratuity Fund but the committee ended up approving only P4.67 billion, he said.

Ungab said the only amendment involving the Department of the Interior and Local Government was the itemization of projects under the Grassroots Participatory Budgeting Program that were previously classified only as “various projects.”

The small committee also did not recommend the increase of P8 billion for Contingent Fund “precisely because it was never discussed and the BBL law has not yet been passed,” he said.

He also noted that the APEC requirement was brought up during the budget briefings.

“We made sure that the amendments we approved were within the budget submitted and were actually tackled not only during committee but also during plenary as well,” Ungab said.