There has to be lump sums in national budget – Palace

MANILA, Philippines - Malacañang admitted yesterday there were lump sums in the annual budget but that these were intended to ensure ready funding for emergency expenses, such as during calamities.

Presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda made the clarification as he assured the Supreme Court of the executive department’s prompt reply to a directive that it answer a petition filed by the Philippine Constitution Association questioning the billions of pesos in lump sum allocations this year.

“We will not hesitate to respond. We are in good, sound legal footing. What (Budget Secretary Florencio) Butch Abad said publicly in media, we will defend before the courts,” he told reporters in a briefing.

Lacierda underscored the need for the national government to regularly allocate contingency funds for calamities like Super Typhoon Yolanda that devastated the Visayas and killed at least 6,000 people in November 2013.

“There are lump sums that are necessary, for instance contingency fund,” he said. “How do you predict how many storms are coming? You know I would be glad if Neri Colmenares will be able to divine to us how many storms will come in 2015 or 2016,” he said, referring to the Bayan Muna party-list congressman.

“It’s something that’s very hard to specify. So out of necessity, you need to have such fund as Secretary Butch Abad has always said,” Lacierda said in Filipino. “We’re not denying it – especially the contingency fund,” he said.

“Until such time that they can define to us how much it will cost per typhoon and how many typhoons will be coming in a given year in our country, it will always have to be a fund that will be parked in a place where it will answer all the concerns for disaster,” he maintained.

Philconsa, led by its president Leyte Rep. Martin Romualdez, along with former budget secretary Benjamin Diokno, former senator Francisco Tatad and Archbishops Fernando Capalla, Romulo de la Cruz and Ramon Arguelles, filed a petition with the SC seeking the issuance of a temporary restraining order (TRO) on the implementation of provisions in the Constitution that make the allocation of lump sums possible.

In a full bench session Tuesday presided over by Justice Arturo Brion, the SC ordered Malacañang and Congress to respond to Philconsa’s claims in its petition. An insider said the SC gave the respondents 10 days from receipt of notice to comply with the order.

Earlier this month, a group led by former national treasurer Leonor Briones of anti-corruption watchdog Social Watch Philippines filed a similar petition. In that case, the SC also ordered the government to answer the petition.

Abad said lawmakers were actually to blame for the existence of lump sums as they were the ones who approved the budget program.

“The 2015 budget is an act of Congress. We are just implementing it,” the budget chief said.

In filing the SC petition, Philconsa cited the “scandalous and unconscionable freight” of P424-billion lump sum that were “cleverly embedded” in nine departments and two agencies.

The two agencies of the executive department are directly under the office of President Aquino.

Among the specific unconstitutional provisions the petitioners cited in the General Appropriations Act of 2015 were Section 65 on lump sum appropriations, Section 70 which redefined “savings” and Section 73 which allowed realignment of funds.