Palace urged to speed up submission of 2010 budget

MANILA, Philippines - Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. urged Malacañang and the Department of Budget and Management yesterday to speed up submission of the 2010 general appropriations bill to give Congress enough time to approve the measure on or before the Nov. 30 deadline for filing of certificates of candidacy.

Pimentel said the budget measure should be passed before Nov. 30 because many of the lawmakers would be seeking re-election or other elective post and would no longer be allowed to perform their legislative duties after filing their COCs.

Pimentel criticized the practice of the Arroyo government of transmitting the budget bill to Congress 30 days after the opening of regular session on the fourth Monday of July.

“Although there is nothing unconstitutional about this practice, the late submission of the general appropriations bill deprives Congress of at least a month of precious time to scrutinize and deliberate on the money measure,” he said.

“If the Aquino, Ramos and Estrada administrations made it a practice to submit the national budget on opening day of the regular session, there is no reason why the Arroyo administration could not do the same,” Pimentel said.

Apparently, he said Malacañang and the DBM failed to anticipate the problem that would arise from Comelec’s order to advance the period and deadline for the filing of the COCs.

He said the latest word from the Palace was that the budget bill had not yet been finalized and nobody knew how much would be the spending program for next year.

The Comelec had to advance the period and deadline for the filing of certificates of candidacy due to the shift to the automated system.