Senate ends budget plenary debates

The Senate on Friday morning concluded its marathon plenary debates on the General Appropriations Bill which contained the proposed P5.26-trillion budget for the fiscal year 2023.

Senator Sonny Angara, chair of the Senate Committee on Finance, expressed his optimism that President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. will be able to sign the GAB before Christmas.

"We are aiming that the President can sign the budget bill before Christmas," Angara said in a statement.

On the last day of its marathon plenary debates which lasted for almost two weeks, the Senate approved the proposed budgets of six government agencies with the Commission on Higher Education's P35.463 billion budget as the last to be tackled.

The Chamber also approved the proposed budgets of the Philippine Statistics Authority for P9.7-billion; the Department of Science and Technology for P24.665-billion; the National Commission on Senior Citizens for P193.343-million; the Department of Health for P215.333-billion; and Congress of the Philippines for P26.154-billion.

Zubiri took to Facebook to express his gratitude to his fellow senators who finished the "grueling" plenary debates.

"Finally, the debate on the national budget of the Philippines is done. We finished at 1:42 a.m. and I thank all our hardworking senators who stayed up until dawn," he said.

Likewise, he thanked the Chambers staff and secretariat led by Senate Secretary Rey Bantug, as well as the agencies that patiently waited for their proposed budgets to be discussed.

Covid-19 vaccine wastage

One of the highlights of the plenary debates was the disclosure of the country's Covid-19 vaccine wastage rate which has reached 31.3 million doses amounting to more than P15.6 billion.

Senator Pia Cayetano, who defended the DoH's P210.5 billion proposed budget for 2023, quickly clarified that the vaccine wastage rate which is equivalent to 12 percent of the total received vaccines is still within the allowed percentage.

"But of course, this does not mean that just because it is within the allowed percentage the DoH is not striving to improve that number," she stressed.

She disclosed this after Senator Risa Hontiveros inquired about the Health department's Covid-19 vaccine wastage.

To recall, Hontiveros previously filed a resolution seeking to investigate reports of unused and expired Covid-19 vaccines amounting to P5 billion to P13 billion.

Citing reports from the DoH, Cayetano attributed the vaccine wastage to the short life span of Covid-19 vaccines from the World Health Organization-COVAX facility.

"One of the reasons for the expiration was because the COVAX-funded vaccines that we received really had a short lifespan," she said.

She also noted that some of the vaccines considered as wastage came from those provinces hit by past typhoons and other natural calamities, temperature excursions, discoloration, and the presence of particulate matter.

Cayetano said as of November, the country has received a total of 250.38 million doses of various Covid-19 vaccines, of which 171.20 million doses were administered.