House to send 2016 budget to Senate this week

MANILA, Philippines - The House of Representatives is scheduled to send the proposed P3.002-trillion 2016 national budget to the Senate this week.

“We are now printing clean copies of the budget. If there is no printing delay, the Senate should have the budget by Friday,” Davao City Rep. Isidro Ungab, appropriations committee chairman, said yesterday.

He said the committee, with authority from the House, made three major changes in the budget bill before printing it.

These are the allocation of P500 million for the Commission on Elections (Comelec), the restoration of cuts in the maintenance and other operating expenses of 42 state universities and colleges (SUCs) and the appropriation of P2 billion for the pension of World War II veterans, he said.

He added that the P500 million for the Comelec is intended for the cost of transmitting the results of the elections on May 9, 2016 from the precinct level to various tabulation centers.

The Comelec requested for the vote transmission funds.

“We have to allocate the money. Otherwise, the votes in next year’s elections may not be transmitted and counted,” Ungab said.

Rep. Elpidio Barzaga Jr. of Dasmariñas City in Cavite said the contract the Comelec awarded to its automation service provider Smartmatic-TIM (Total Information Management Corp.) in the 2010 elections included the cost of printing ballots and vote transmission.

However, in the 2013 polls, he said the Comelec then chaired by Sixto Brillantes unbundled the cost by awarding a separate contract for the transmission of votes from the clustered precincts in canvassing centers.

He said the new Comelec leadership apparently followed the 2013 practice.

The Comelec has given Smartmatic-TIM two contracts worth P8 billion for the lease of 100,000 precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines to be used in next year’s elections.