After months of delay, lawmakers ended the budget drama on Friday when the 17th Congress ratified the proposed 2019 P3.757-trillion national budget. This came about after the bicameral conference committee approved on the same day a reconciled version of this year’s budget. Following its ratification, the annual appropriations will be transmitted to Malacañang for President Duterte’s signature.
Lawmakers junked the cash-based budget system of the Department of Budget and Management, saying this will do more harm than good. Instead, they went for the obligations based budgeting, which allows appropriations and obligations until the next fiscal year, extending the validity of funds to two years.
The 2019 budget contains insertions made by lawmakers called “pork” insertions. Sen. Panfilo M. Lacson Sr., who has expressed his disapproval of pork-barrel funds, has asked the President to remove the “pork insertions” in the budget by using his line-item veto power.
For fiscal year 2019, the education sector will get the lion’s share of the national budget. Based on the budget documents, the House of Representatives introduced P20.65-billion realignments while senators made P25.4-billion insertions or a total of P46.35 billion.
At the Senate, 15 senators voted in favor of the ratification of the bicam report on the spending bill, while five voted against it: Senate Minority Leader Franklin M. Drilon, and Senators Lacson, Risa Hontiveros, Paolo Benigno A. Aquino IV and Francis N. Pangilinan. In a privileged speech clarifying his vote, Drilon cited reports that all senators were unfairly accused of getting P3 billion each in pork- barrel allocations. “There were previous reports that one province in Visayas will get P3.3 billion in infrastructure projects,” said Drilon, adding: “Mr. President, I deny and take exception to these allegations. I want to make of record that the province referred to is not my province of Iloilo.”
Lacson also took the floor on Friday to express “my dissent and disgust,” deploring multibillion-peso pork-barrel allocations for lawmakers in 2019 budget. Sen. Loren B. Legarda, cochairman of the bicameral talks that hammered out the final version of the budget bill, subsequently stood up to debunk Lacson’s denunciation of the “pork-laden” annual appropriations.
It was, indeed, a messy road the 2019 national budget had to navigate before its approval. Allegations of pork to further patronage politics notwithstanding, the people want to see all must-pass budgetary items included to help spur economic growth. In his budget message to Congress, President Duterte identified key budget priorities: funds for infrastructure development and expanding programs on human development; enhancing social services through expanded educational opportunities, universal health for all; continuing provisions for the people’s basic needs by ensuring food security and securing meaningful employment, among others.
If the 2019 budget blueprint includes all priority items identified by the President, we need to ensure that the funds will be properly spent. That’s one way for us to guarantee, for example, the success of the “Build, Build, Build” program, or ensure that everyone, most especially poor Filipinos, has access to health care. What’s important is for the Duterte administration to show transparency in managing all public expenditure.