THE chairman of the House Committee on Appropriations said on Tuesday the lower chamber will not accommodate in the 2020 national budget the requests of lawmakers whose districts’ budgets were slashed and vetoed in this year’s General Appropriations Act.
In an interview, Davao City Rep. Isidro Ungab said lawmakers are appealing for an increase in their districts’ budget for 2020 following the budget cuts in their 2019 budget.
“I sympathize with them, I understand what they want, but the amount is too big and it would be difficult to include [their requests] in the 2020 national budget,” he said.
“That was brought up during the budget of the Department of Public Works and Highways [DPWH]. I truly understand their sentiments. I studied what happened…those that were slashed during [2019] budget preparations in the House and [the projects that have been affected by the presidential] veto,” he added, in a mix of English and Filipino.
According to Ungab, P70 billion to as much as P90 billion is needed to accommodate the lawmakers’ requests.
“P70 billion to P90 billion. It is very hard to put it now. I have to explain to them because if you include all of that now, you will be reducing [the budget of agencies]. I appealed to them, I told those who approached me to please understand and let’s exclude those for the meantime from 2020,” Ungab said, adding, “because it will really hurt the operations of the departments.”
Ungab said the committee will seek a meeting with the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) and the DPWH to address the concerns of lawmakers.
“So we start from there and we look at the possible solutions, possible funding, but not in this budget,” Ungab added.
One of the possible options, Ungab said, is the passage of a supplemental budget.
“Most likely it could be a supplemental or whatever. We will study how the situation can be remedied because those that were vetoed are still there and they became unappropriated. So, it is possible that we can tap it later,” Ungab said. President Duterte vetoed P95.3 billion in the DPWH budget under the 2019 GAA for “not being part of the President’s priority projects.”
Following his proposal to withdraw the 2020 GAB, Deputy Speaker for Finance Luis Raymund Villafuerte has said several lawmakers were “dissatisfied” with several items in the 2020 national budget.He added lawmakers are questioning the inequitable distribution of allocations for their districts in the P4.1-trillion national budget for 2020.
Based on the schedule of activities, the appro-priations committee will deliberate the 2020 NEP starting August 22 to September 9, while the approval of the committee report is set on September 11. The proposed 2020 General Appropriations Act is expected to be approved on third and final reading on October 4. Then, the House will transmit it to the Senate for its own deliberations on October 8.
The Congress is eyeing to submit the 2020 national budget to President Duterte on December 20.
Image credits: AP/Aaron Favila