House appropriations chair downplays budget errata

By: Marc Jayson Cayabyab - 10 years ago

MANILA, Philippines—The House of Representatives appropriations committee chair on Tuesday downplayed the Makabayan bloc’s claims that some P430 billion in the 2015 budget were erroneous and had bypassed the plenary.

Appropriations panel chair Davao City Rep. Isidro Ungab said the budget errata wants to correct only P4.7 billion in the P2.6 trillion budget as opposed to some P430 billion that Makabayan claimed was erroneous.

“The issues being created regarding the budget amendments or errata are actually erroneous and misleading. The amendments in the budget only resulted in a net effect of only P4.7 billion.” Ungab said in a statement.

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

Ungab cited the following amendments in the budgetary items:

P3.28 Billion for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation; P998.8 Million for the Bureau of Customs, P296.9 million for the Department of Tourism, P93.7 million for the Department of Trade and Industry, P34 million for the Commission on Human Rights, P3 million for the Commission on Elections, P53.5 million for the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, P5 million for the Partido State University, and P1.790 million for the Grassroots Participatory Budgeting.

In their statement on Monday, Bayan Muna Rep. Neri Colmenares said the 269-page Department of Budget of Management errata cited the following realignments: P423 billion for the Department of the Interior and Local Government, P8 billion contingent fund for the Bangsamoro, P3.281 billion for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation, P1.6 billion for the Department of Finance-Bureau of Customs, among others.

Ungab said the P8 billion for the implementation of the Bangsamoro basic law is not yet approved by the committee.

He added that Bayan Muna had no basis to claim some P423 billion were realigned for DILG.

“The only DILG amendment in the budget is the itemization of (Grassroots Participatory Budget) previously classified as various projects. The small committee did not recommend the increase of P8 billion for Contingent Fund precisely because it was never discussed…” Ungab said.

On Tuesday, Colmenares corrected their statement and said the P423 billion was for the Allocation for Local Government Units (ALGU) instead of for the DILG.

But the militant solon questioned why the ALGU was lumped with the Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA) even when these are different budget classifications.

“This creates confusion and should be questioned. Billions of peoples money will be lost if we do not scrutinize the budget. That is why we question the lack of transparency with which these supposed errata were inserted,” Colmenares said.

The militant lawmaker maintained these budgetary items that they claimed bypassed the plenary should still be subjected to debate.

“We should subject these changes to discussion and approval of the whole House instead of merely approving it en toto on third reading,” Colmenares said.

Ungab maintained that the proposed P2.6 trillion budget was well tackled in the committee and plenary.

“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.

The lower chamber is expected to pass the 2015 budget on third and final reading on Wednesday.