Senate passes P1.8-T budget

The Senate on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved on third and final reading the proposed P1.816-trillion national budget for next year with the lone dissent voiced by Senator Joker Arroyo.

Arroyo had questioned Malacañang’s attempt to sequester part of the allocations for constitutional bodies like Congress and the Supreme Court.

Voting 18-1, the upper chamber wrapped up its plenary deliberations on the measure, following week-long marathon hearings to ensure that the bill would be on President Benigno Aquino III’s desk for his signature next month.

Senator Franklin Drilon, finance committee chairman and an ally of Mr. Aquino, described the budget as “results focused and decidedly biased for the poor.”

Arroyo had complained that the “lump sum” appropriations in the budget were bigger than in previous years.

He also criticized the executive branch for supposedly trying to “emasculate” the Supreme Court and other constitutional bodies like Congress by controlling part of their budgets through the Miscellaneous Personnel Benefits Fund (MPBF).

Under the MPBF, unused portions of the outlays of constitutional bodies for new hires would revert to the fund which is under the control of the President.

“This is a reform government (but) I don’t see any reform in the proposed budget,” Arroyo said in his rebuttal during the debate on the bill.

But Drilon countered: “We have restored the MPBF to the respective budgets of Congress, the judiciary and other constitutional offices. In compliance with the constitutional mandate, we have maintained at least the 2011 levels of the budgets of the constitutional offices.”

The finance committee, however, “imposed” a rule requiring those agencies to submit quarterly reports on how their respective budgets for unfilled positions had been spent.

Arroyo complained that the President had his own MPBF but would not be required to do a similar reporting.

Despite Arroyo’s reservations, the proposed budget was passed overwhelmingly.

“This is the first budget passed entirely under the Aquino administration and we expect it to be submitted to Malacañang as early as the first week of December, which is in keeping with the wishes of President Aquino,” Drilon said in a statement.