‘Supplemental budget skirts SC ruling on DAP’

MANILA, Philippines - Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago questioned yesterday the P22.5-billion supplemental budget being asked by Malacañang, saying it might be used to circumvent the Supreme Court (SC) decision declaring the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) and the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) as unconstitutional.

Santiago said there was no need for Congress to approve the proposal since the government is under-spending by as much as P594 billion.

“The supplemental budget cannot be taken carelessly, it should be thought out, it should be reserved, it should be held as a power in reserve. For example, if there is a dire natural disaster and the infrastructure of the country is threatened, maybe we can pull out a supplemental budget,” she said.

“But as it is, pardon my French, I think this budget is ridiculous. Because it’s only some two weeks left before the new budget begins so why do you want a supplemental budget when the new one is about to start? The new one has not even started then you already want to supplement it? What is the meaning of this?” she added.

Santiago said “there is no necessity” for the supplemental budget “except to cover up what I think is a pernicious effort to go around the decision of the Supreme Court that held the DAP unconstitutional.”

Santiago has been critical of the definition of savings adopted by the executive branch and Congress, which has been incorporated in the 2015 General Appropriations Bill.

She argued that as long as there is a provision in the national budget that refers to savings or allows the executive to stop a project and divert the money to other projects, this goes against the meaning of savings in the Constitution.

“There are still minefields in this budget. Because no matter how you manage the words, if they can be interpreted to mean that a project already approved by the Congress of the Philippines can still be changed by another project by the executive branch of government, then that is not savings as contemplated by the Constitution,” Santiago said.

Based on Malacañang’s proposal, the supplemental budget will fund projects like the housing component required by the Comprehensive Recovery and Rehabilitation Plan (CRRP) for Typhoon Yolanda, which was approved last July.

The Department of Budget and Management explained that even though P11 billion of the funding requirement for housing was already covered by the 2014 National Risk Reduction and Management Fund and released to the National Housing Authority, it would still draw P8 billion from the supplemental budget for a total of P18.9 billion as required by the CRRP.