JDV: Lawmakers can still save 2006 budget

Lawmakers can still save President Arroyo’s proposed P1.053-trillion 2006 budget that would give her an additional P100 billion to spend for the remaining five months of the year, Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr. said yesterday.

"We can save the budget, we still have the time to approve it," he told ANC (ABS-CBN News Channel).

He indicated that Sen. Manuel Villar Jr. is the key to breaking the Senate-House deadlock on the President’s budget proposal for this year.

De Venecia said if and when Villar is elected as replacement for Senate President Franklin Drilon, he would like to meet with him so the deadlocked bicameral talks on the outlay could be resumed.

He said the meeting would be attended by Albay Rep. Joey Salceda, House appropriations committee chairman, and by Villar’s successor as Senate finance committee head.

"We hope to sit down with them and revive the bicameral discussions on the budget," he added.

Senators are expected to elect Villar as the chamber’s new president. It is not clear if this would be done on Monday, when the 13th Congress opens its third regular session, or shortly after. He and Drilon have a term-sharing arrangement. Drilon will most likely succeed Villar as chairman of the committees on finance, and public order and security.

Drilon does not see the two chambers tackling the 2006 budget after Monday’s opening of the third regular session.

According to him, senators and congressmen do not have time to discuss the proposed outlay for this year since they would soon be scrutinizing the 2007 budget proposal, which they expect Mrs. Arroyo to submit to Congress shortly.

Besides, he said the differences between the two chambers on the 2006 budget are difficult to reconcile and the government can very well continue operating on the basis of the reenacted P907-billion 2005 outlay for the remaining five months of the year.

De Venecia said it is important the spending program for the current year be approved since "it would give government more funds for its projects."

He said the budget proposal would also provide money for the combined congressional-local elections in May 2007.

He lamented that the Senate "mangled" the budget when it cut it by P64 billion.

The huge reduction included the P5-billion Kilos Asenso fund and the P3-billion Kalayaan Barangay appropriation. These are new items in the budget that senators suspect would form part of Mrs. Arroyo’s pork barrel but which Malacañang claims are intended for local government units.

The bicameral conference on the budget collapsed early last month when Mrs. Arroyo, through her House allies, insisted that her spending proposal be kept intact. She had vowed to reject any reduction in her budget.

Before the conference started, she had asked Salceda to work particularly for the restoration of the P8 billion in Kilos Asenso and Kalayaan Barangay funds.

On Tuesday, Villar said the talks could resume provided the President and the House agreed to realigning the P8 billion for the construction of classrooms.

Salceda responded that the shared stand of Mrs. Arroyo and the House remains the same: P1.053 trillion or nothing.