Co says Lagman should be respondent of own petition vs 2024 national budget

MANILA, Philippines — Ako Bicol party-list Rep. Elizaldy Co believes Albay 1st District Rep. Edcel Lagman should include himself as among the respondents of his own petition against the 2024 national budget, as the previous year’s General Appropriations Act (GAA) also contained unprogrammed funds.

In a statement on Wednesday, Co explained that the 2023 GAA — which Lagman had a hand in crafting through the bicameral conference committee — also had the unprogrammed funds that the Albay lawmaker is complaining about.

Lagman filed a petition before the Supreme Court questioning the constitutionality of the P449.5 billion excess funds in the 2024 GAA, which supposedly pushes the annual appropriation past the P5.768 trillion ceiling.

“When he was a member of the Bicameral Conference Committee in 2023, he also approved unprogrammed funds of the same amount as 2024,” Co, chairperson of the House Committee on Appropriations, said.

“Was it because he was recently excluded from the bicameral committee that he now claims unprogrammed funds are illegal?” he asked.

READ: Lagman questions legality of allocation from unprogrammed funds 

Co also asked why complaints are only surfacing when the same appropriations committee Lagman headed years ago also passed budgets that contained unprogrammed appropriations.

Reporters have asked Lagman’s office for his comment but he has yet to respond as of posting time.

“Lagman was also once chairman of the appropriations committee and a member of said panel for almost 15 years and yet not once has he ever complained about unprogrammed appropriations. Why complain now?” Co said.

“Perhaps the gentleman from the first district of Albay is becoming more forgetful,” he added.

Lagman and past and present lawmakers maintained that Article VI, Section 25 of the 1987 Constitution prevents Congress from increasing appropriations past the budget recommended by the President.

The increase in the unprogrammed funds for the 2024 budget was first revealed by Senate Minority Leader Koko Pimentel, who said that Malacañang’s original proposal of P281.9 billion was pumped to P731.4 billion, or a P450 billion increase — which supposedly breaches the P5.768 trillion ceiling prescribed by the National Expenditures Program (NEP).

Pimentel said that the 2024 budget may be considered unconstitutional because of this issue, with former senator Panfilo Lacson agreeing, as the unprogrammed fund hike would push the 2024 budget beyond the P6 trillion mark.

READ: Pimentel: 2024 budget ‘unconstitutional,’ may be raised before SC 

Despite these assertions from Lagman and Pimentel, lawmakers aligned with the majority and the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) itself maintained that the unprogrammed fund hike does not push the budget ceiling because these are only standby funding.