Malacañang restores P4.9B budget for unfilled posts in constitutional institutions

MANILA, Philippines — Malacañang has restored the P4.975 billion budget of the constitutional institutions for unfilled positions on condition that if the money was not used, it should be returned to the national treasury.

“We all agreed that the item be restored to the PS (personnel services) items of those constitutionally fiscally autonomous groups,” Budget Secretary Florencio Abad told the Senate committee on finance on Wednesday.

“That’s P4.975 billion Mr. Chairman. This involves the Congress of the Philippines, the judiciary, the Civil Service Commission, the Commission on Audit, the Commission on Elections and the Office of the Ombudsman,” he said.

Abad said the budget for unfilled positions under the miscellaneous personnel benefit fund (MPBF) for the legislative and constitutional institutions would be “regularly and automatically” released but “in case the funds are not used, they will revert it to the treasury.”

It was not clear, however, if the concerned agencies could declare the budget, if not used, as either savings or bonus of their employees.

Senator Edgardo Angara noted that the tradition was the budget for unfilled positions was being used as savings or bonus.

But since the money was allocated to fill up the vacancies in government, Abad believes that it should be used for the such purpose.