House approves 2001 budget after P10-B cut

The House of Representatives approved the 2001 national budget yesterday after cutting it by P10 billion.

Second-reading approval came after three days of marathon sessions and a day before Congress goes on a two-week break for All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day.

Speaker Manuel Villar Jr. told reporters that he and his colleagues had to cut the proposed P725 billion budget for next year since the deteriorating economic situation clearly indicates that it has become unrealistic.

He said the reduction could have been bigger had not the majority prevailed upon the minority to keep it to the minimum.

Actually, opposition congressmen were proposing a reduction of as much as P20 billion.

Rep. Gilberto Duavit (LAMP, Rizal), chairman of the appropriations committee, and Minority Leader Feliciano Belmonte Jr. (Lakas, Quezon City) agreed on the P10-billion cut on behalf of the majority and the opposition.

Of the P10 billion, P5 billion will be in outright cuts while the other half will be in the form of unprogrammed or unfunded appropriations which can only be spent if revenue collection improves and extra cash is available.

Some P2 billion of the P5 billion in outright reduction will come from the P4-billion land survey fund of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

Part of it will also come from the P3.5 billion outlay of the Pasig River Rehabilitation Commission, which is chaired by Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno.

A technical committee will recommend to the Duavit panel the specific appropriations amounting to P5 billion that could be lumped with the unprogrammed or unfunded portion of the budget.

Duavit said the P10-billion cut may not be sufficient, given the worsening economic crisis, but that he and his colleagues chose to leave to the executive department the discretion to make adjustments in the budget.

Citing a specific example, he said the P144 billion debt service allocation alone will surely go up since it was originally based on an exchange rate of P41 to a dollar before the administration’s economic managers adjusted it to P44.

But even the adjustment of P3 may not be enough since the rate has gone up to P50 to a dollar, he added.

He pointed out that the fast-falling peso means that the soaring budget deficit will further go up unless the government cuts on expenditures.

Belmonte, for his part, called the 2001 budget "unrealistic, deceptive and misleading."

He said it was unrealistic because of the continued fall of the peso, the escalating prices of world crude, and the imminent privatization of the state-run gaming firm, and deceptive and misleading because the economy is limping along like never before.

On the whole, the minority leader said, the budget was badly planned and prepared because it was drawn up out of context.

"In assessing this budget, we must look at the context within which we are going to review and finally approve it. The context tells us that our economy will collapse if we do not address the biggest and most shameful scandal that ever shook the national leadership of this country," he said, referring to the jueteng fallout.

Before approving the 2001 budget, congressmen made known their displeasure with Donna Gasgonia, head of the National Anti-Poverty Commission, for her alleged lack of courtesy and arrogance.