Ombudsman fights for fiscal autonomy to use savings

Ombudsman Conchita-Carpio Morales (INQUIRER PHOTO)

Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales on Thursday asked Congress to allow her office to use its savings generated from the previous appropriations to augment its expenses.

During the hearing before the appropriations committee deliberating on the Ombudsman’s proposed P2.299 billion budget for 2017, Morales insisted on her office’s fiscal autonomy as enshrined in the Constitution.

She asked Congress to return to the general provisions of the proposed General Appropriations Act allowing the Ombudsman to use its savings.

The Ombudsman asked Congress to include in the special provisions of the proposed appropriations law the power for the Ombudsman to use savings “to augment actual deficiencies from any time of its appropriations for the current year” and to use income “generated from fees collected by it.”

The Ombudsman said the Constitution allowed the office to use its savings to preserve its independence.

The office said the savings were intended to partially defray its operational expenses.

But Marian Chavez of the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) legal services department said the Constitution did not include the Ombudsman as among the bodies authorized to use its savings.

“If we look into the Constitution, the Office of the Ombudsman is not among those who are authorized to use their savings,” Chavez said.

But Morales fired back that the office could not afford to keep on refunding their savings every end of fiscal year.

Morales said at the time the Constitution was crafted, there was still no Republic Act No. 6770 or the Ombudsman Act, which states that Congress should grant the office fiscal autonomy and should not reduce its budget.

“Appropriations for the Office of the Ombudsman may not be reduced below the amount appropriated for the previous years and, after approval, shall be automatically and regularly released,” the law read.

“At the time the Constitution was crafted, there was yet no Ombudsman Act. There’s a reason, as the lady from the DBM said, the Office of the Ombudsman was not included in the general provisions that we should be given authority to retain our savings,” Morales said.

“At the time, there was yet no Ombudsman Act. If we pursue her observation to its logical conclusion for the year we have been allowed to use savings, ibig sabihin magre-refund kami?” she added.

Appropriations chair and Davao City Rep. Karlo Nograles said the committee would strengthen the Ombudsman’s fiscal autonomy and allow the office to use their savings instead of remitting it to the treasury.

He said the committee would also have to coordinate with President Rodrigo Duterte so that the latter would not veto the special provision on the Ombudsman’s use of savings.

“Regarding the request of the Ombudsman to use savings and income, we’d be inserting in it part of the special provision in the General Appropriations Act,” Nograles said.