CONCERNED senators said on Thursday the final version of the P3.7-trillion budget bill for 2019, having been “already ratified” by both chambers of Congress, can no longer be altered.
Asked if last-minute “amendments-alterations” can still be introduced in the already approved national budget bill, several senators voiced misgivings over reported moves to tinker with the approved money measure.
“We cannot [do that] since the bicameral report [approving the final version of the budget] has already been ratified [by both chambers],” Sen. Panfilo M. Lacson Sr. said, adding, “That’s why, either House can’t alter or amend anymore.”
The senator suggested that “we should submit an Enrolled Bill as approved and ratified and leave it to the President to line-item veto the lump sum appropriations or any item for that matter.”
Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon asserted that plenary action to reopen the budget bill for amendments “cannot be simply done at this stage.”
“Approval of the bicameral report by plenary must first be reconsidered,” said Drilon. “Then bicameral [conference committee] is reconvened. Proposed itemized amendment must be presented, approved in bicameral and contained in Revised Bicameral Report which will then be submitted to plenary for approval,” Drilon added.
For his part, Sen. Aquilino L. Pimentel III posited that if amendments to the already ratified budget bill itself were to be done, “then yes, we need plenary approval.”
“But such approval to amend the [already] approved budget can only be done when Congress, now on recess, resumes sessions on May 20 yet,” Pimentel pointed out.
Sen. Richard J. Gordon, for his part, ruled out as “illegal” any attempt to tinker with the already approved budget bill. “We cannot touch it anymore,” Gordon told the BusinessMirror. “Its a violation of the legislative process. There is no legal ground. It is illegal.”
Sen. Francis G. Escudero explained that “simply put…after the bicameral-approved budget bill has been ratified by both chambers, it cannot, and should,no longer be changed by anyone, much less by only one chamber and without the unanimous consent of the entire body.”