‘Not the end of the world’

Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—There’s a possibility that the 2015 budget will be a reenacted one but “it won’t be the end of the world if it happens,” said House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr.

Belmonte said the prospect of next year’s budget being a copy of the 2014 budget could happen if Congress fails to pass the General Appropriations Act for 2015 because of low attendance.

Concerns about a reenacted budget loomed in the House of Representatives after Navotas Rep. Toby Tiangco, secretary general of the opposition United Nationalist Alliance (UNA), threatened to keep invoking the quorum during the plenary budget debates that has been marked by rank absenteeism by legislators.

“Chances are very little, very small, but it’s a possibility. It’s not the end of the world if that happens because it has happened many times before,” Belmonte told reporters late Thursday.

Tiangco has threatened to question the quorum for every day that Budget Secretary Florencio Abad fails to provide the House a complete list of Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) funds released to legislators, as the latter had promised.

In the face of Tiangco’s threat, Belmonte was prompted to call a meeting of party leaders early Thursday to appeal to majority members to attend the budget deliberations and prevent the scenario of a reenacted budget.

A quorum is required for every session day, but it has been the practice in the House to suspend proceedings instead of adjourning. In this way, the session day is only considered a continuation of the last one that had a quorum.

Since the plenary debates began last Monday, when a quorum was achieved, the House leadership has been suspending sessions at the end of each day. Thus, the records still reflect attendance on Day 1, even though in reality only a few lawmakers are present in subsequent days.

Belmonte said this was normal. “Traditionally, it has always been like this, in the area of sponsorship and things like that, really we have never succeeded in getting a full crowd,” he said.

“But definitely [when] it is necessary to get everybody’s vote counted, they will be here,” he said.

Belmonte said he had asked party leaders of the majority coalition to “make an effort between now and the 26th when we approve the budget to have more people present.”

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