Miriam thinking of taking budget insertion issue to SC

MANILA, Philippines – Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago is mulling the possibility of elevating to the Supreme Court the issue on congressional insertions in the country’s annual budget in light of the controversy involving the alleged double entry for the C-5 Road Extension Project.

Santiago said this could be the only way to stop congressional insertions that could be a source of corruption for lack of transparency.

She also suggested ways to promote transparency in the passage of the budget to avoid controversies.

Santiago said she will propose that the President exercise impoundment on public funds; let all congressional insertions be taken up in the plenary so they would be transparent; and every legislator should have an allotted financial limit for individual insertion.

She said there must also be a cap of P200 million for each insertion, noting it was quite shameful to see other lawmakers inserting billions of funds to certain pet projects.

Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile however said Santiago’s proposal would not be in accordance with the law.

“The President proposes the budget, that is the National Expenditure Program and then it’s translated into a bill form by the House of Representatives. That is a constitutional prerogative of the House. They can change the entire recommendation of the President. That’s the power of the House. There’s no way to limit amendments. That’s why the Constitution already set a cap. You cannot increase the National Expenditure Program of the President. You work within that but Congress being the one that decides, that translates it into law, the appropriation law,” Enrile said.

“You cannot control the powers of the House of Representatives and the Senate in those things,” he added.

But Enrile said he welcomes Santiago’s plan.

“I would encourage her to do it so that we will be guided because in my view, the appropriations bill is just like any other piece of legislation, it is within the control of Congress to decide what time of expenditures will be preferred and not preferred. The only limiting factor is that the Constitution says you cannot increase the amount recommended by the President,” he said.

Tomorrow, Enrile, chairman of the Senate finance committee, will lead the inquiry into the double entry in the 2008 national budget for the C-5 Road Extension Project and other congressional insertions.

He said it would be up to Senate President Manuel Villar Jr. to attend the hearing since the Senate chief was linked to the controversy.

Enrile believes it will be Villar’s discretion to be present or not even as Santiago and Sen. Loren Legarda said the Senate president must clear his name.

“It would be best for him to take a stand and take his oath and explain,” Santiago said.

For Legarda, Villar should come if he has nothing to hide.

“If I were maligned and I know it’s not true, I would immediately speak out and defend myself,” she said.

Enrile said he would ask the departments of budget and management as well as public works and highways to explain why there was double entry for the C-5 project.

“The budget office will have to explain the process of releasing these funds – whether there is any danger of any pocketing of these amounts by anybody – in order to clear the minds of the people.”

Villar has vowed not to inhibit himself from any investigation to get a chance to clear his name.

“The concerned agencies will have to explain. Somebody proposed also former budget secretary Ben Diokno as a resource person so that we will find out what they did in their time in cases like double entries if there were any,” Enrile said. – Aurea Calica