Senate OKs P22.4-B ‘irregular’ supplemental budget

MANILA, Philippines — Voting 13-0, the Senate approved on third and final reading Wednesday the proposed P22.4-billion supplemental budget for 2014 to partially pay the projects bankrolled by the outlawed Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) and Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP), among others.

This, despite strong opposition from Senator Miriam  Defensor-Santiago, who described the budget as “irregular” and an attempt to legitimize the Disbursement Acceleration Program   (DAP), parts of which were declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

Santiago was not present though when the chamber voted to approve the supplemental budget.

But in a manifestation sent to the chamber and emailed to reporters, the senator specifically questioned the urgent need to pass the supplemental budget when Congress   had already approved the P2.606 trillion national budget for 2015.

“Are the proposed spending items so urgent that they can’t wait another two weeks when a new budget will take effect?   Or is the supplemental budget meant to give President Aquino and Budget Secretary Abad a way out of the Supreme Court unanimous decision that some aspects of the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) are unconstitutional?”   Santiago asked.

Abad is Budget Secretary Florencio Abad.

She noted that by Abad’s own admission, some of the items in the supplemental budget were already contracted out and needs to be paid out of the P22.3-billion supplemental budget.

“In my many years in government, I know that one cannot enter into any contract with a service provider or contractor without the spending authority issued by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM). Such spending authority emanates from the general appropriations act,” Santiago said.

“Hence, it is highly probable that the supplemental budget is meant to legitimize what the Supreme Court ruled as illegal?”

It would now appear, she said, that the budget chief was still trying to remedy what the SC ruled as illegal in its decision on the DAP.

“He appears to be asking Congress to legitimize his illegal acts, making members of Congress accomplices in the act of circumventing the Supreme Court decision on the DAP,”   Santiago said.

“The supplemental budget is irregular. It talks of ‘obligations arising from implemented infrastructure projects.’ Who approved the projects?” the senator added.

Santiago said the passage of special appropriations act should be done sparingly.

It is best done, she said, during extreme crisis when the government has to step up public spending in order to avoid a major economic downturn or in time of grave natural calamities like a major earthquake or killer typhoons when the existing budget may be inadequate to finance urgent reconstruction work.

“On the other hand, the passage of a special appropriations act is not justified when the Executive Department has shown gross inability to disburse what Congress has authorized it to spend. Incompetence should not be rewarded,” Santiago said.

“It would be a monumental mistake to use the supplemental budget to legitimize what clearly were illegal acts by some executive officials. By going along with this dark scheme, legislators, who are supposed to make laws, become accomplices in undermining the rule of law,” the senator added.