House to insist on intact budget

The House of Representatives will not budge from its position seeking the passage of the P1-trillion national budget for 2006 and to restore the P26-billion cut made by the Senate, an administration lawmaker declared yesterday.

Albay Rep. Joey Salceda, chairman of the House committee on appropriations, said the Senate had done a great injustice to the people in slashing the national budget that was prepared by the House.

Salceda. in an interview in the weekly radio program "Para Sa Iyo… Bayan!" of Vice President Noli De Castro, pointed out the proposed 2006 budget represents the need of the country to sustain its programs for a vital economy "and we should not just give it up."

Salceda added that the House contingent to the bicameral committee will still work for approval of the budget when Congress resumes session on July 24 to August 24.

The Albay lawmaker claimed the Senate had botched several "missed opportunities" when it slashed the budget by as much as P26 billion.

He said a reenacted 2005 budget does not contain the allocation of P12 billion for the national and barangay elections next year and "the President has nothing to augment" since these items are not present in last year’s allocations.

Salceda also expressed concern over the P1.8-billion allocation for textbooks and the payments of premiums for the seven million members of Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) that will be affected by a reenacted budget.

Another missed opportunity, according to Salceda, was the infrastructure spending that received a 52 percent increase in the 2006 budget for the first time since 1997.

The allocation for infrastructure in the proposed budget had increased from P75 billion to P115 billion, he said.

Even opposition lawmaker Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. called on his colleagues to exert all efforts to pass the 2006 budget during the period of adjournment.

Pimentel pointed out the failure of Congress to pass the 2006 national budget would force the government to reenact last year’s allocations.

A reenacted budget, Pimentel said, would be unacceptable to the opposition.

As a consequence of the non-approval of the 2006 budget, no new projects can be implemented for lack of authority to spend funds, Pimentel said.

The good side of having a reenacted budget, according to Pimentel, was that it would limit the President’s spending authority.

"That means the additional revenues generated from the expanded value-added tax (VAT) cannot be touched by the President legally. However, the downside of it is the President will have the power to realign some funding that is found in the (reenacted) 2005 budget," Pimentel said.

Incoming Senate President Manny Villar Jr., chairman of the Senate committee on finance, said he would continue to work on passing the 2006 budget during the month-long break, hoping to achieve a breakthrough before Congress resumes its sessions on July 24.

However, Salceda admitted the failure of the bicameral committee to pass the 2006 national outlay reflects the mutual distrust between the legislative and the executive branches of government, which he said is "a classic ‘Art of War’ (strategy) and denial of territory."

Noting the wide differences between their proposals over the national budget, the senators and congressmen conceded the need to upgrade the budget allocation for the Department of Education (DepEd) to address the national shortage of classrooms and textbooks.

But after that, senators and congressmen failed to budge from their respective positions, resulting in their failure to pass the budget by the time Congress adjourned sine die last Thursday.

The Senate insisted on slashing P26.3 billion out of the P1.027-trillion proposed national outlay approved by the House.

Pimentel expressed confidence, though, that members of the bicam committee would be able to reconcile their differences in the budget to prevent a reenactment of last year’s allocation.

Pimentel said a reenacted budget was "bad for the interest of all" concerned sectors since it would also mean scrapping new projects that were to be funded by the proposed budget for this year.

Disappointments

In the same radio program, Finance Secretary Margarito Teves said a bigger budget is needed for this year to finance the increasing infrastructure projects of the government and to fund various irrigation facilities in the rural areas since the country has low agricultural growth in power-related projects.

Teves proposed yesterday the creation of a committee outside the Executive and Congress to strengthen accountability of officials and monitor the implementation of Kilos Asenso and Kalayaan Barangay programs.

The funding for both programs was drastically slashed by senators who suspected that the allocations would form part of the President’s pork barrel fund.

The P3-billion Kilos Asenso and P3.6-billion Kalayaan Barangay programs are being pushed by local government units (LGUs).

Teves floated the idea of creating the monitoring committee to the House and Senate contingents to the bicameral conference committee on the 2006 General Appropriations Act.

Teves said the House and the Senate may "mutually" agree on the creation of the monitoring group.

Asked how the foreign community and business sector will look at the reduction in these budgetary items, Teves replied the move will not help the country in attracting more investments.

"The cost of doing business is important to them so they would rather go to other countries in South Asia. Iyon ang (Those are) missed opportunities that could result in job creation," he said.

Local government chiefs led by Bohol Gov. Erico Aumentado, president of the Union of Local Authorities of the Philippines (ULAP), said the Kilos Asenso program was initiated by provinces, cities, municipalities and barangays to support President Arroyo’s ten-point agenda that was focused on water projects, irrigation, school buildings and farm-to-market roads.

Aumentado said the local government units had recommended the amount of P5 billion to the President and agreed to put up a counterpart fund of P5 billion for its implementation.

"We are disappointed by what the Senate did in not (approving the) Kilos Asenso fund. The LGUs already included in their budget a counterpart fund. That is not a pork barrel of the President. It will be the LGUs that will propose the projects," Aumentado explained.

He said the LGUs are still hopeful that the Senate will reconsider their hard-line position against the Kilos Asenso and Kalayaan Barangay funds. — With Marvin Sy