AFTER pressure from the Senate, the House of Representatives approved on Tuesday the bill providing for the national budget of P3.757 trillion for next year.
Voting 196-8, members of the lower chamber endorsed for Senate approval House Bill 8169, or the Fiscal Year 2019 General Appropriations Bill (GAB).
Majority Leader Rolando G. Andaya Jr., in a news conference, assured the public the 2019 budget is “pork barrel-free.”
“Everything we are doing here is compliant with all the pertinent laws and the Supreme Court decision [on the Priority Development Assistance Fund],” he said. House Committee on Appropriations Vice Chairman Maria Carmen Zamora said the P3.757-trillion budget is the first annual cash-based budget of the Philippine government.
The cash-based budget is equivalent to 19.3 percent of gross domestic product, which is marginally higher compared to the 18.9 percent in 2018. This is about P433 billion, or 13 percent higher than the 2018 cash-based equivalent of P3.324 trillion.
Earlier, Zamora said the 2019 national budget will be approved on November 28. But senators asked the House of Representatives on Monday to approve and transmit immediately the 2019 national budget to the Senate for deliberations.
Sen. Panfilo M. Lacson Sr. said the House should give senators enough time to scrutinize the budget before passing it, as Congress will go on Christmas break on December 12.
While the Senate has already conducted hearings on various agency outlays at the committee level, it could not yet begin its plenary deliberations until the House-approved version of the 2019 budget is transmitted. Under the rules, the annual appropriation should emanate from the House.
For fiscal year 2019, the education sector will get the lion’s share of the national budget while the Department of Public Works and Highways will receive the second highest allocation.
The Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) will receive the third largest appropriation in 2019. The other top recipients shall be the Department of National Defense (DND), Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), Department of Health (DOH), Department of Transportation (DOTr), Department of Agriculture (DA), the Judiciary and the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM),.
In his budget message to Congress, President Duterte identified key budget priorities: 1) intensifying infrastructure development through infrastructure projects in and outside Metro Manila and in local government units (LGUs), and through information technology (IT) infrastructure; 2) expanding programs on human development; 3) enhancing social services through expanded educational opportunities, universal health for all, and social protection; 4) continuing provisions for the people’s basic needs by ensuring food security and securing meaningful employment; 5) rehabilitating Marawi and moving forward ; 6) building a more secure nation through the
hiring of more police officers and enhancing the capability of the Philippine National Police and the Armed Forces of the Philippines, and ensuring efficient administration of justice.
2018 budget extension
This, as the House of Representatives on Tuesday adopted a resolution extending the validity of the 2018 budget for another fiscal year.
In House Joint Resolution 32, the lower chamber seeks to extend the validity of 2018 appropriations for maintenance and other operating expenses (MOOE) and capital outlays to December 2019.
The resolution, principally authored by Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, said there are allocations that have not been released and allotment issued that have not been obligated, which shall automatically result in the reversion of the said unexpended appropriations to the unapproriated surplus of the general fund of the much-needed MOOE and CO to fund priority projects, aid and relief activities, as well as maintenance and construction/repair and rehabilitation of schools, hospitals, roads, bridges and other essential facilities of the government.
Lawmakers said extension of the 2018 is needed to fund government facilities that have been affected by recent calamities.