Delay is anti-people

“Government will have a hard time operating with a delayed budget and the principle should be that the spending plan for a particular year should not be disrupted.

The budget for next year will most likely pass before the end of the year if the Bicameral Conference Committee (BCC) will not go through the same contentious process in approving the 2019 budget, which got President Rody Duterte’s signature only last April.

In the first four months, the government was run using a reenacted budget resulting to the slowdown in the momentum of the economy, threatening the target this year of an above six percent growth.

The economy expanded a weak 5.5 percent in the second quarter following a 5.6 percent recorded in the preceding three months, since the delayed approval of the 2019 budget disrupted state spending.

The government struggled to infuse public funds to perk up the economy in the remaining months of the year that it hopes would be enough to push growth to the minimum six percent growth at year’s end.

The House of Representatives and the Senate blamed each other for the delay as legislators traded allegations of pork insertions.

To the public, however, it was still Congress with their members hungry for kickbacks and commissions from project allocations that held up the most important piece of recurring legislation.

The budget will again go through the bicameral reconciliation process, hopefully without the acrimonious exchange involving allegations of realignments and insertions.

Rody mirrored the disgust of the public on the actions of their elected officials when he removed through his veto power some P90 billion in insertions and unnecessary items in the budget this year.

Moreover, the Palace said maneuvering the provisions of the budget would be useless since Rody has his veto power.

Presidential spokesman Sal Panelo expressed the President’s hope that the BCC would be able to reconcile disagreeing provisions without undue delay.

“The Executive branch hopes that the BCC of the Legislature would be able to arrive at a considered decision in reconciling the conflicting provisions found in the two versions of its respective houses without prolonged partisan discussion and undue delay,” Panelo said.

As a form of a catch up, Congress is now seeking the extension of the 2019 budget to cover the missed months or until April next year, which means the government would possibly be running using two outlays.

Economists are divided over the effects of the dual budget on the government.

Nicholas Mapa, senior economist at ING Bank in Manila, said it would be a boon since it is expected to support state spending.

“What’s better than a super budget? Two of them,” Mapa said.

He noted that with the cash-based budgeting scheme the government would not be able to carry project funds over to 2020 without the extension.

Mapa said should the 2019 budget be extended, he expects a “double dose of fiscal stimulus” as the 2019 and 2020 budgets take effect in parallel.

Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Gov. Benjamin Diokno, who is an economist, believes otherwise, saying the use of two budgets in the first quarter may lead to confusion on prioritization of projects.

He said the extension of the validity of the 2019 budget will not necessarily increase the 2020 budget. “Not many legislators know this. The 2020 disbursement program is fixed. The extension of the 2019 budget means that some items in the 2020 budget will be bumped off, assuming DBM (Department of Budget and Management) would allow the substitution,” he noted.

He posed the question: “It is also a matter of prioritization — are the 2019 budget items extended more important than the items in 2020 budget that will be crowded out?”

The point is that the government will have a hard time operating with a delayed budget and the principle should be that the spending plan for a particular year should not be disrupted.

Congress is vested with the power of the purse, which the public expects it to exercise judiciously with vested political or personal interest set aside.

Filipinos expect their elected officials to put the greater interest above all else in approving the budget on schedule.