‘Deal’ breaks budget impasse

After months of deliberations – highlighted by allegations of “pork barrel” insertions by both senators and congressmen – Congress is expected to approve and ratify today the P3.757 trillion proposed national budget for 2019.

Senate President Vicente Sotto III, after an all-senators caucus late Wednesday night, said the Senate Finance Committee chairperson Sen. Loren Legarda reported the bicameral conference committee reached a compromise on contentious provisions of the budget measure.

“They reached a compromise, that would be the most official statement,” Sotto said.

The Senate president said the bicameral committee, led Legarda and House Appropriations Committee chairman Rep. Rolando Andaya Jr., will be meeting to review and finalize the budget measure at 9 a.m. today before being ratified by both the Senate and House of Representatives (HoR) during their respective sessions at 3 p.m.

Asked if the budget measure will be ratified today, Sotto replied, “Most probably.”

“There might be some questions… But in all probability, because it was requested and being expedited by the Executive department, it could be passed,” he added.

The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) also answered allegations hurled by the HoR regarding pork insertions generated by the former.

“We have received information of new allegations against the DBM. These accusations are without basis and are meant to discredit the good reputation of this administration’s DBM as one of the most transparent and credible institutions in the world,” the DBM said.

During a hearing on Wednesday, witnesses tagged Budget Undersecretary Amenah Pangandaman as the one who officiated the insertion of funds amounting to P75 billion worth of projects to the 2019 budget of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) without the DBM’s knowledge.

According to DPWH employees who testified during the hearing, it was Pangandaman who summoned them to the DBM on 11 July 2018 for the “encoding” and “reformatting” of projects for inclusion in the National Expenditure Program.

Sotto, however, admitted the multibillion-peso “insertions” questioned by his ally Sen. Panfilo Lacson remained in the proposed national budget.

Sen. Panfilo Lacson He said the P160 million allocations for each of the almost 300 members of the House of Representatives and the P23 billion individual amendments by some senators are still present in the compromise.

“Some (House) amendments, especially those that Ping and some of our members want to be removed for being excessive were retained. The House does not want to remove them,” he said.

For his part, Lacson said he will not relent on his advocacy against “pork barrel,” despite the seeming defeat anew in fighting the allocations declared by the Supreme Court as illegal.

Lacson also confirmed the insertions by both senators and congressmen he questioned during the deliberations were carried in the budget.

“Sadly, no matter how hard I argued last night, I only have one vote, although I have good reason to believe that some like-minded colleagues are supportive of deleting all pork insertions, particularly the excessive and unconscionable realignments made not only by our HoR counterpart, but by a number of our colleagues as well,” Lacson said.

He, however, declared victory in the realignment of all allocations for graft-prone flood control and dredging projects to the capital outlay for various agencies.

Lacson is also seeing the good result of his fight against “pork barrel,” saying “Hopefully, I was able to enlighten the public because of the public discourse that transpired for or against the outlawed pork barrel. I would say we have gained some headway in this regard.”

The senators are not about to raise the white flag, though — pinning his final hope on President Duterte to veto all “pork barrel” insertions in the national budget.

“Hopefully, the President and his economic managers will further scrutinize the final version of the budget bill as passed by Congress and exercise his veto power to excise the line items that clearly look and smell like pork,” Lacson said.