Palace expects Congress to pass 2015 budget in time

MANILA, Philippines - Malacañang is optimistic that the House of Representatives will be able to pass the 2015 budget on time despite efforts by the minority to delay the proceedings by questioning the quorum.

Presidential Spokesman Edwin Lacierda thanked the lawmakers for mustering a quorum last Monday, which enabled them to continue the budget deliberations.

“Hopefully, the quorum will continue until last day of plenary sessions,” Lacierda said in an interview yesterday.

“We are confident that the House under the leadership of Speaker Sonny Belmonte will be able to pass budget based on the timeline for the approval of the national budget,” he added.

Congress will go on a three-week break on September 27 and will resume sessions on October 20.

Belmonte told reporters last Monday that the House would do its best to pass the proposed P2.606-trillion national budget for 2015 this week.

He said the House may hold a special session if it fails to pass the measure on Friday.

Earlier, Navotas Rep. Toby Tiangco questioned the quorum to pressure the Budget department to release details of the disbursement acceleration program (DAP) releases. The absence of a quorum would disrupt the budget proceedings.

Tiangco claimed the DAP report of Budget Secretary Florencio Abad had lots of blanks and did not contain the amount requested by or to lawmakers.

The lawmaker said he asked Abad to provide him with a more detailed report on the DAP funds last August 26.

"I asked Sec. Abad all the letter-requests of legislators, the status reports of the projects and all the necessary details wherein we can see the amount per legislator. A deficient and incomplete report is unacceptable in this day and age of computers," Tiangco said.

"Where is the P10.08-billion DAP given to congressmen and senators? It appears that the report was sanitized,” he added.

Last July, the Supreme Court unanimously declared some acts under the DAP unconstitutional for violating the constitutional doctrine of separation of powers.

The acts that were struck down as unconstitutional were the withdrawal of so-called unobligated allotments from implementing agencies and their use as savings before the end of a fiscal year and the cross-border transfers of savings of the executive to augment funds of agencies outside the department.

The allocation of funds for projects and programs not included in the national budget was also declared illegal.