BUDGET Secretary Benjamin E. Diokno warned on Wednesday that they will call for a special session if Congress does not pass the P3.757-trillion national budget by February.
But he is still confident the lawmakers will be able to do their job to pass the 2019 budget before they hit the road to campaign for the midterm elections.
“Because there is an election…. They have to hit the road. They have to campaign by the middle of February. Because if they don’t pass the budget, we will call them to a special session again and again, so that will take time away from their campaign so they must be thinking ‘let’s get this done so we can campaign.’That’s why I am confident,” Diokno said in a briefing in Diamond Hotel.
Congress sessions resumed last January 14 and will run until February 8. Then Congress will go on recess from February 9 to May 19 for the 2019 campaign and midterm elections.
The government is operating under a reenacted budget because of the Congress’s supposed failure to pass the budget before year-end last year due to a number of issues, including the late transmittal of the measure by the House to the Senate and alleged budget “insertions,” among others.
Last year President Duterte agreed not to call for a special session at the request of the Senate.
Because of the reenacted budget, the DBM said the scheduled fourth tranche of salary hike intended for 1.7 million government employees and military this year was put on hold pending the passage of the budget.
House Majority Leader Rolando G. Andaya Jr. had asked the Supreme Court on Monday to compel the DBM to release the salary hike even before the budget is passed, saying it is possible because there are alternative fund sources like Miscellaneous Personnel Benefits Fund (MPBF).
However, the DBM stood firm that there is no legal basis to release the salary hike because the Executive Order 201, signed by then-President Benigno S. Aquino III, stated that the implementation of the salary hike for 2019 is “subject to appropriations by Congress.”
The fund cannot be sourced from the MPBF because it only covers the third and not the fourth tranche of salary hike, DBM said.
Image credits: dbm.gov.ph