House to focus on P1.6-trillion 2011 budget next week

MANILA, Philippines - The House of Representatives will focus on President Aquino’s proposed P1.645-trillion 2011 national budget next week.

Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. told a news conference yesterday that the next two weeks would be for budget deliberations.

“The budget poses a challenge for us to do more with less by removing the fat and requiring administrative reforms in state agencies,” he said.

He said the budget debates would also be a “nice cooling off period” on the controversy involving the impeachment of Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez, which has pitted the House against the Supreme Court.

He said he and his colleagues would be so preoccupied with debating and approving the budget that they would not have time to attend to other issues.

“I think things will calm down. After the budget debates, we will go on a three-week break and will resume sessions on Nov. 8,” he added.

Majority Leader Neptali Gonzales II said the House would begin budget deliberations on Monday.

“We will have morning, afternoon and evening sessions starting at 10 in the morning, Mondays through Fridays, for the next two weeks. We hope to approve the budget by the end of that period,” he said.

He said committees, including the committee on justice that is handling the Gutierrez impeachment case, would be prohibited from meeting or holding hearings.

The appropriations committee, which Cavite Rep. Joseph Emilio Abaya chairs, is expected to endorse the President’s proposal almost intact today or on Monday.

Abaya earlier told reporters that they were inclined to heed Mr. Aquino’s appeal for lawmakers to respect his spending priorities by not make substantial realignments and huge budgetary insertions, which traditionally form part of the congressional pork barrel.

Belmonte has informed his colleagues that if they wanted to augment the funds of certain agencies, they would have to suggest where the money would be taken from.

He said a fund increase given to one office would mean taking an equal amount away from another.

“We cannot take it from debt service funds because debt service is not part of the President’s budget in the first place.”

Belmonte was referring to Mr. Aquino’s decision to stop the practice of his predecessors of including debt amortizations in new appropriations that Congress authorizes Malacañang to spend each year.

Budget Secretary Florencio Abad said the President’s decision was prompted by the “improper reduction” of debt payments by the previous 14th Congress.

Early this year, when the last Congress was considering the 2010 budget, a Senate-House committee co-chaired by Sen. Edgardo Angara and then Quirino Rep. Junie Cua cut debt payments by P65 billion and diverted the huge reduction to the congressional pork barrel.

The P65 billion was on top of the regular pork barrel allocations of P200 million per senator and P70 million for each member of the House, or a total of about P24 billion.

Thus, for this year, members of the previous Congress gave themselves nearly P90 billion in pork barrel funds.