Senate leaders are not ruling out the possibility that the government, under the Duterte administration, will continue to operate under a reenacted 2018 budget until July due to unresolved “flood control and drainage” funding issues in the 2019 budget bill.
Senate President Vicente Sotto III said this was in the information conveyed by Sen. Loren Legarda, who co-chairs the Senate-House panel crafting the final version of the pending annual money measure.
“As of now, the only report I got from Senator Legarda, the chairman of the Committee on Finance, is that they have agreed to remove issues on flood control and drainage and that’s about it,” the Senate President said.
Sotto asserts, however, that “as far as the Senate is concerned, we stand on the institutional amendments,” explaining that “these are necessary amendments for the continuing of health services and other similar public services. They are not individual amendments.”
The Senate leader said he has yet to receive a full report, but added: “I expect a report now; so what is happening is that if they do not reach an agreement, and if there seems to be a new demand from the House, it will really lead to an extended reenacted budget.”
Sotto added: “Now, if it is reenacted, I believe that the Executive Department might be able to do legal means to be able to continue services of the government even if it is reenacted.”
Still, he held out hopes that “by July, we will pass the budget with the new House leadership.”
Under the approved congressional calendar, the Senate and the House will adjourn by Friday and go on recess from February 9 to May 19 and resume regular sessions anew from May 20 to June 7.
Amid insertion issues hounding the proposed 2019 P3.757-trillion General Appropriations Act, lawmakers are targeting to ratify the budget bill on February 6.