Senate doubles Binay’s budget to P500 M

MANILA, Philippines – The Senate has increased the 2016 budget for the office of Vice President Jejomar Binay by more than double to P500 million.

The increase is reflected in the matrix of adjustments senators made in the proposed P3.002-trillion national budget for next year.

The document was given to the House of Representatives this week at the start of the bicameral conference on the spending measure.

The House contingent in the conference committee, led by Majority Leader Neptali Gonzales II and appropriations committee chairman Davao City Rep. Isidro Ungab, is now studying the Senate-sponsored changes.

The matrix shows that senators increased funding for Binay’s office from P230.5 million as approved by the House to P500 million, or by P269.5 million.

Sens. Juan Ponce Enrile and Vicente Sotto III reportedly sponsored the increase. The matrix does not show where the additional funds would go.

However, a member of the House contingent, who did not want to be named, told The STAR that the adjustment could only go to maintenance and other operating expenses (MOOE) and capital outlay (CO) and not personal services (PS) or salaries.

“You cannot increase the allocation for salaries, unless you increase the number of authorized positions for the Office of the Vice President,” the source said.

The OVP has 96 authorized positions, of which 82 are filled. It is allocated P52 million for salaries. The rest of its budget goes to MOOE and CO.

Its P180-million MOOE funding includes P23 million for travel, P14 million for the hiring of consultants, P15 million for representation expenses and P88 million for “financial assistance/subsidy.”

Congress used to appropriate an additional P200 million a year for Binay’s office as his pork barrel fund until the Supreme Court declared the Priority Development Assistance Fund as unconstitutional in November 2013.

Thus, his budget went down from P416.6 million in 2013 to P217.3 million last year and P222.6 million this year.

The Senate also increased its own budget by P161 million for next year, from P3.554 billion to P3.715 billion, and gave an additional P105 million to the Senate Electoral Tribunal (SET), from P139 million to P244 million.

The SET is the body that decides election cases against senators.

While increasing their budget, senators reduced funding for the office of President Aquino by P66 million, from P2.826 billion to P2.760 billion.