DBM has redefined savings in budget, claims party-list solon

Kabataan Rep. Terry Ridon INQUIRER.net FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines–The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) inserted a redefinition of savings in the proposed 2015 national budget to fit Malacañang’s Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP), a move likely to win the nod of a Congress dominated by administration allies, a militant lawmaker said on Thursday.

Kabataan Rep. Terry Ridon said he would challenge all the way to the Supreme Court the DBM move to amend the definition of savings in the proposed national expenditure program.

The high court earlier struck down as unconstitutional the DAP as it realigned to agencies outside the executive branch and to programs outside the approved General Appropriations Act (GAA).

The Palace has appealed the unanimous adverse ruling, saying nine petitions against the DAP should be dismissed for lack of merit.

“They’re really attempting to legitimize DAP through the budget. So, they’re attempting again to mislead the public. They are just fooling the people because what they’re doing is they are changing the classic definition of savings to fit DAP,” Ridon said at the close of a press forum in Manila.

He conceded that the “pliant” Congress would “most definitely pass” the amendment, but said a remedy was available in the high court.

To challenge in SC

“We will question that in Congress… But if they are able to assert that for the budget next year, we will oppose that and challenge that in the Supreme Court at the soonest possible time,” Ridon said.

Under the 2014 national budget, savings are defined in two paragraphs as “portions or balances” of programmed funds under the approved national budget “free from any obligation or encumbrance” and which are “still available” upon the end of abandonment of a project, balances from unpaid compensation due to leaves and vacancies, or balances because of improved budget disbursement and utilization.”

Augmentation is defined as an appropriation “determined to be deficient.” More importantly, the definition clearly states that there shall be no instance where an augmentation from savings be used for a “nonexistent program activity or project (PAP)” otherwise authorized in national budget.

The proposed 2015 budget carries a lengthier definition of savings and augmentation.

Savings was defined as unreleased or unobligated funds similar to the 2014 GAA, but specifies in its coverage funds that were unreleased due to the failure of agencies to jumpstart, or the “noncommencement” of a project approved under the GAA.

The proposal also has a more detailed definition of augmentation, particularly allowing augmentations for funding deficiencies due to “unforeseen modifications or adjustments in the PAP or a reassessment in the use, prioritization and/or distribution of resources.”

Reemergence in future

Ridon found such amendments in the definition of savings and augmentation troubling, saying such was an “attempt to legalize DAP and is actually paving the road for DAP’s reemergence in the near future.”

“In previous GAAs, there were no such things as ‘noncommencement’ or ‘unforeseen modifications.’ One strict requirement to determine savings is that the fund is still available after the final discontinuance or abandonment of the PAP. Under the new definition, DBM did away with the requirement of finality, thus expanding the President’s discretion over public funds and vastly clipping the congressional power of the purse,” Ridon said.