Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago on Thursday slammed Malacañang for proposing a “bloated” and “ambitious” budget for 2016 despite the administration’s “epic” underspending record and for supposedly retaining lump sum appropriations similar to the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF).
In a speech read by Sen. JV Ejercito during the Senate hearing on the proposed P3-trillion national budget for 2016, Santiago noted how the government underspent a total of P670 billion from 2011 to 2014, adding that underspending was “colossal” even in the first months of 2015 at P190 billion.
“It is not as if the Aquino administration is meeting its promised outputs and outcomes at less cost. It is simply failing in meeting its promises to the Filipino people,” Santiago’s speech read.
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Citing “sheer incompetence” and “poor planning,” Santiago warned that a “bloated” budget is prone to electoral politics. “Decisions about fund transfers in the guise of ‘savings’ are not necessarily for public purposes but for election-related objectives,” she said.
The feisty senator also reiterated her warning against the “continued presence” of PDAF-like allocations, calling these the most dangerous budget threat.
“Last year, I warned about excesses in pork barrel spending, and abuses in the utilization of lump-sum appropriations and unprogrammed expenditures. I repeat the same warning on the 2016 budget; only the portents are more grave and the threats to our financial stability more serious,” Santiago said.
“Every time a lump-sum appropriation exists it potentially means that the original budget approved by Congress, the general appropriations act, is illegally superseded and replaced by a mechanism created by one department or agency … By usurping the congressional power of the purse, it violates the principle of separation of powers,” she added, urging her colleagues to realign “PDAF-like budget items” amounting to P166.3 billion to alternative expenditures for social development.
Santiago also questioned “objectionable special provisions” authorizing heads of agencies under the executive branch to modify and realign the programs, activities, and projects as authorized by Congress, through the general appropriations act.
She said the Senate should reject the redefinition of savings, which supposedly “exacerbates the unconstitutional provisions of the 2015 budget and willfully ignores the three decisions of the Supreme Court on PDAF and DAP (Disbursement Acceleration Program).”
Furthermore, Santiago said heads of agencies should not be allowed to modify or realign budget items after the budget has been enacted.
“Augmentation from savings, appropriately defined, is allowed in the Constitution under very restrictive conditions. Realignment is not contemplated in the Constitution. It violates the Supreme Court decision on the DAP,” Santiago said.
“During the last five budgets, Congress has dutifully approved the President’s Budget. What the President wants, he gets…. We do not have to be subservient to the Executive Department. We have our own mandate and our own responsibility,” she added. RAM