CITING “gaps” in the billions of pesos in the proposed P3.757-trillion national budget for 2019, Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph G. Recto on Tuesday asserted the need to fund certain measures in the annual money measure.
“There are gaps in the proposed 2019 budget that the Senate can address in a transparent, legal way,” Recto said, even as the senator promptly added he was not pinning the blame on any of the proponents of the measures requiring funding.
Among those for which funding will have to be set aside are new laws like the rice tariffication and coconut levy, as well as the Supreme Court ruling on the internal revenue fund (IRA) sharing that requires the national government to plow back billions to local government units.
“No one is to be blamed for the oversight, as these unfunded mandates arose from laws passed after the 2019 national budget had been prepared in the Executive branch,” Recto explained.
In addition to new laws, Recto noted “there is the Supreme Court ruling on the IRA [internal revenue allotment] case, which now adds billions in revenue plowbacks to local governments.” Recto recalled that “the ink had already dried on the proposed 2019 budget when this was promulgated.”
He pointed out that “nature also contributed to the need to recast portions of the budget,” citing, for instance, the damage caused by Typhoon Ompong which, he estimated, “will cost billions to repair and was impossible to forecast.”
According to Recto, “the truth is, developments break while the budget is being heard in Congress. The correct response is to try to accommodate them in the budget and not to totally ignore them.”
Rice tariffication, coco levy
One of these supervening events, he noted, is the rice tariffication bill. “If it will be signed into law while the 2019 national budget is still being debated in the Senate, then the Senate should fund the law’s mandate that a minimum P10 billion be annually provided for farmers to cope with the removal of import restrictions,” said Recto, recalling that this was “a promise given by the government to farmers, which it must redeem.”
Should President Duterte opt to sign the coco levy bill ahead of the Senate approval of the 2019 budget, Recto suggested that senators likewise incorporate into the 2019 budget the P10 billion it guarantees in yearly appropriations. “The return of the levy has been delayed. It is an injustice to subject its funding to dilution,” he adds.
According to Recto, another landmark legislation that requires funding before the start of the next fiscal year is the universal health care law, citing preliminary estimates that about P18 billion must be added to what was provided in the 2019 General Appropriations Bill.
Moreover, the senator listed the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL) as “one big promissory note we have issued to our brothers in the South,” airing concerns that “the consequences are great if we default on this.” He insisted that the first down payment in realizing the many promises of BOL must be in the 2019 budget.
Recto, however, acknowledged that “admittedly, there is tight budget space, and not much re-allocable funds to go around, in filling these gaps. Budgeting is a zero-sum game. By law, we cannot breach the total ceiling that the President has recommended.”
Asserting that “a peso is better than zero,” the senator said that the least the Senate can do is “put some money, rechanneled from low-priority and postponable expenditures, into these laws and programs so they can qualify for augmentation in a manner compliant with established rules.”