Lawmakers still working on budget even after final version OK’d

Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, March 1) — Lawmakers are still doing further work on the 2019 budget even after Congress approved its final version in February.

House Appropriations committee chair Camarines Sur 1st District Rep. Rolando Andaya told CNN Philippines that congressmen are still itemizing lump sum appropriations approved in the bicameral conference committee “for transparency purposes.”

“What was approved sa bicam were lump sum appropriations or sum totals of amendments. There are no details to these totals. So both houses will have to fill in the details of these sum totals,” Andaya said in a text message on Friday.

Congress ratified the reconciled version of the budget bill in February, after months of wranglings over alleged anomalous “insertions” in the budget.

However, Senator Panfilo “Ping” Lacson said this is unconstitutional and violates the 2013 Supreme Court ruling outlawing “pork” or lump sum funds which lawmakers have control over how to spend.

“Pray tell, how can the list of individual projects still be approved when it is being submitted only now or after the reconciled version of the measure has already been ratified by both houses, not to mention that we have adjourned and ended our regular session?” Lacson told CNN Philippines in a text message.

Lacson said this is a grave abuse of discretion as all amendments should follow the legislative process and be approved in plenary.

Last minute insertions delaying budget

In a separate statement, Lacson alleged that last minute insertions and realignments made by congressmen in the budget are the reasons why the budget has not yet been transmitted to President Rodrigo Duterte two weeks after Congress approved its final version.

“I have it on good information that the House leadership is still waiting for several congressmen to finalize the submission of their individual projects. This is not to mention that insertions and realignments were made even after the bicameral report ratification,” Lacson said.

He also said that he has spoken to some House members who expressed anxiety over talks that 62 congressmen’s allocations were slashed and realigned even after the ratification of the final version of the 2019 budget by both houses of Congress.

“Whatever it is, these are things that they do for greed. It’s a shame and revolting, to say the least,” Lacson said.

But Andaya denied that congressmen made insertions after the ratification of the bicam report, adding that everything is above board and were approved in the bicam.

The budget was supposed to have been enacted before the end of 2018, but its passage was delayed until February due to allegations of anomalies surrounding it.

These same allegations have also prompted some lawmakers, Lacson included, to urge Duterte to veto certain items in the budget.

“Unless those line items are vetoed by the President, we will have a blatantly pork-filled 2019 national budget,” he said in a text message.

Lacson has been alleging that despite pork being banned by the Supreme Court, the 2019 budget is still laden with it. For this reason, he voted no to the ratification of the bicameral conference committee report on the budget bill.

Citing Senate Finance committee chair Loren Legarda, Lacson has said that the ₱160 million allocation for every congressman, the “billion peso insertions” of their colleagues and the ₱23 billion insertions made by some senators in the Public Works department and other agencies were retained in the final budget bill.

Meanwhile, congressmen were up in arms over the ₱75 billion insertions in the budget of the Public Works department, which Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno said was included to meet the government’s target to spend five percent of the country’s gross domestic product for infrastructure projects.

This story initially said that Senator Panfilo Lacson claimed that he spoke to at least 60 congressmen whose budget allocations were slashed after the ratification of the final budget bill. This has been corrected in an update.

CNN Philippines Correspondent Joyce Ilas contributed to this report.