Senate President Franklin Drilon. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO / JOAN BONDOC
Senate President Franklin Drilon said he expects the twin passage of the proposed P3.002-trillion national budget in 2016 and the Salary Standardization Law (SSL) by December this year.
After finishing the plenary debates on the 2016 budget Wednesday night, Drilon said the Senate is now ready to vote on it on second and third reading Thursday afternoon.
READ: Senate focuses on proposed 2016 national budget
“Next week we will devote the week for the bicameral conference committee meeting between the House and the Senate in order to thresh out the differences. So we expect that the bicam will finish its work by December 4 and we’ll ratify the bicam the week of December 7 to 11 including the printing of the budget itself,” he said in a press conference.
“So we expect to send the budget for 2016 to Malacanang by December 14 . That’s our target day so that the President will have about a week to 10 days to review the budget and see whether he will exercise his line item veto as he would traditionally do. So we’re confident that we have the budget finished by the month of December,” the Senate leader added.
Included in the 2016 budget, he said, was the P57 billion allocation for the SSL of government employees, which should be implemented by January 1, 2016.
READ: Drilon: Congress to prioritize Salary Standardization Law before 2015 ends
“Ang kabuuhan po ng alokasyon para sa SSL ay (The total allocation for SSL is) P 225.8 billion which will be given in four years to start in 2016 with the allocation of about P57 billion. So it’s important that the budget becomes effective by January 1 of 2016 so that we can effect the SSL 4 at that point,” Drilon said.
“That’s why immediately after we pass the budget, we’ll give the highest authority to the (SSL) which will now define in definite terms what is the salary scale for each salary grade of the employees in government,” the senator added.
“We’d also want to pass the SSL within December so that in January it will be implemented with the funds coming from the aurthorization in the 2016 budget,” he further said.
In the 2016 budget, Drilon said they would also request the Senate committee on finance to restore the P500 million allocation for the Electronic Results Transmission, Management and Services of the Commission on Elections (ERTSMS), which was approved by the House of Representatives.
However, the said budget was removed at the finance committee headed by Senator Loren Legarda.
Drilon said the budget for the ERTSMS would speed up the transmission of the election results. RAM