Smooth sailing seen for 2012 national budget

With Congress set to deliver passage of the P1.816-trillion national budget for 2012, Malacañang on Wednesday assured lawmakers it would begin spending the funds early.

“Compared to this year when we started spending only in June, we will start spending in January. So we can assure the House and the Senate that the disbursements will be released as early as January,’’ said presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda.

Lacierda defended the delay in government spending this year, explaining that the executive branch was assessing the system of infrastructure disbursements.

Public Works and Highways Secretary Rogelio Singson, for instance, has been putting his efforts into correcting the disbursement system in his department, he said.

Bicam committee

The Senate approved early this week on third and final reading the proposed 2012 budget, paving the way for the bicameral committee to begin reconciling the House and Senate versions.

Congress hopes to submit the new budget law to President Benigno Aquino III by early December.

Both majority and minority blocs in the House agree that the budget will be approved as scheduled at the bicameral conference committee next week.

“Everything appears on track as scheduled. We expect President Aquino to sign it on Dec. 15,” said Majority Leader Neptali Gonzales II.

Cavite 1^st District Rep. Joseph Emilio Aguinaldo Abaya, chair of the House appropriations committee, said concerns about government underspending this year would not be a factor in the bicam, adding that everyone expects the measure to be ratified as early as Tuesday.

Lone dissenter

Sen. Joker Arroyo, the lone dissenting vote in the Senate, said the government’s underspending in 2011 has left more than P200 billion in unspent funds that Malacañang could use like a blank check next year.

Minority Leader Edcel Lagman said that while he shared Arroyo’s concern, the minority reckoned that the alternative of rejecting the 2012 budget and rolling over the 2011 budget to 2012 was an even more unpalatable prospect.

Lagman appealed to the administration that while it can do anything it wants in Congress with its superior numbers, it should give Congress a chance to tweak some parts of its budget proposal.

The Senate has agreed to allow the Aquino administration to keep its allocation of more than P7 billion for reproductive health programs in next year’s budget, despite the absence of a national framework contained in the proposed RH bill.

Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III, a leading opponent of the RH measure, did not block the enormous allocation included in the proposed budget for the Department of Health.

Sotto even offered to increase the RH budget, which, at present levels, would benefit only around 50 percent of the poorest households in the country.

Who needs RH bill?

The senator said he decided to support the allocation for the DOH’s reproductive health programs because “it proves that you don’t need the RH bill.”

“What do we need the bill for? With the passage of the budget and with the DOH in a complete reproductive health program for women and infants, we don’t need the RH bill,” he said.

In its version, the Senate opted to remove P448 million in the DOH budget. Sotto said the amount was a “duplication” of the existing P1.7-billion allocation for a vaccination program for elders aged between 60 and 69.

“Our suggestion was to cut it and distribute it to specialty hospitals of government,” he said.