Whistleblowers demanded that it is the entire government’s duty to explain to the public what transpired during the period when the Bicameral Conference Committee report containing blank items was emailed to members of Congress and when these were filled in the enrolled General Appropriations Bill (GAB).

The budget process is sacred and should not be tampered with by any officials in government since it involves the allocation of money owned by the public. The process always follows a program designed to ensure growth in the economy that improves the well-being of the citizens.

“The authority to draft a budget that is based on the Philippine Development Plan or the medium-term development plan and according to the capacity to spend would be the Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC) and the Department of Finance (DoF) will guide the revenue-raising capability and the debt plan,” former Budget Secretary Wendell Avisado said.

“Whether we like it or not, there is an automatic appropriation on sovereign obligations (which affects the allocation of funds),” he added.

Avisado added all of the needed spending is appropriated by Congress but the way that the public money is allocated “should be known by the people since it is their money.”

“The process should be transparent. The blank items in the bicameral conference committee report and the failure of the government to explain it has violated that principle,” he explained.

“Whoever filled up the missing texts and the one who ordered it, that’s what we wanted to know,” according to Avisado. “It behooves them to explain their side since they have affixed their signatures on the report that became the basis of the enrolled bill.”

The enrolled bill was certified correct by the secretary general of the House and the secretary of the Senate and signed by the Speaker of the House and the Senate President, which makes the blanks mysterious since there is a presumption that members of Congress or at least the bicam panel knew about it.

The Bicam is the Bicameral Conference Committee which budget watchdogs have derisively referred to as the third chamber of Congress because of the powers it acquired over the annual budget.

“In the transmission of the report with the blank items to the enrolled bill that was delivered to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the blanks were filled up. It should be explained how it happened,” Avisado indicated.

“That gap should be explained to the public.”

Davao City Rep. Isidro Ungab appealed to the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) not to deflect the issue over the blank items since it is the Bicam report that is the subject of scrutiny and not the GAA.

“We are not spreading false information here. I am a member of Congress and I was sent an email and I received a copy which is the Bicameral Conference Committee report.”

Ungab retorted, “I was not the only one who received a copy of the report with the missing texts, many other members of Congress have gone on record that they received the same documents.”

He conceded that the DBM is correct as far as the General Appropriations Bill (GAB) is the basis of the GAA but “what I am saying is that the basis of the enrolled bill is the bicam report that has several blank items in it.”

“That’s what makes things questionable, how the missing parts of the budget were filled up and how the figures were placed in it.”

Ungab advised the DBM against belittling the Bicam report.

He said officials of the DBM should “review your basic budgeting knowledge” since it was the first time that the blank items appeared in a budget report signed by Bicam members and ratified by the plenary of both chambers of Congress.

“You can’t present a Bicameral Conference Committee report with unfilled portions,” according to Ungab, who is a former chairperson of the powerful House appropriations panel.

The question, according to Ungab and Avisado, will have to be submitted to two venues which are the Supreme Court and the bar of public opinion.

According to both budget watchers, the public must be involved in the scrutiny of the blank spaces in the bicam report.

At stake in the argument over the Bicam report blanks is not only the integrity of the government but also public funds painstakingly contributed by Filipinos through taxes.