House of Representatives to insist on budget version

MANILA, Philippines — There seems to be no end yet to the budget impasse. The House of Representatives will insist on its version of the proposed 2019 budget in which at least P99 billion in lump sums it had agreed with the Senate in February have been “itemized” or supported with a listing of projects.

“We will insist on no lump sum because that is what is unconstitutional. That’s what we will insist, no lump sum,” Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo told reporters yesterday.

“If we don’t come to an agreement and then (Senate president) Tito (Vicente) Sotto does not sign the bill, then there’s no bill to send to the President. So I do not know if we will (agree) but I would wish we would,” she said.

Arroyo clarified that the House has not withdrawn the printed copy of its version of the budget it sent to the Senate for Sotto’s signature, and eventually for transmission to President Duterte.

“No, we have not withdrawn our version. We’re in discussions about what is the proposed new version…as to the details, that’s the one that we’ll see,” she said.

She said she was planning to meet later with San Juan Rep. Ronaldo Zamora and other congressmen on what they would do to finally break their impasse with senators on the budget.

If the House insists on its version of the 2019 spending bill, then the two chambers are deadlocked again.

Such scenario loomed as Camarines Sur Rep. Luis Raymund Villafuerte accused the House leadership of committing an “unconstitutional abomination in realigning to the districts of favored members at least P92 billion worth of public works and health funds originally earmarked for over 80 other legislative districts.”

“The damage has been done. They have held the proposed 2019 budget hostage to their insatiable greed in realigning to favored legislative districts some P72 billion in funds of the Departments of Public Works and Highways originally allocated for other districts. The House leadership also padded the district allocations of these favorite legislators with another P20 billion in funds from the Department of Health,” he said.

In so doing, Villafuerte said his chamber’s leaders “have put in jeopardy this year’s implementation of President Duterte’s priority programs to attack poverty and boost economic expansion to above 7 percent.”

Sotto and anti-pork barrel Sen. Panfilo Lacson have said at least 62 House members have complained to them of losing tens of billions in infrastructure funds to favored congressmen.

Sotto specifically mentioned Raul Daza of Northern Samar and Aurora Cerilles of Zamboanga del Sur, his partymate in Nationalist People’s Coalition, as among the complainants.

No new version

The Senate has rejected the House-printed budget, which is why it has been urging congressmen to recall it. It is not proposing a “new version.”

What the Senate wants the House to do is to send the version contained in the bicameral conference committee report the two chambers ratified on Feb. 8 before adjourning for the three-month election campaign.

That report contained lump sums, which, according to appropriations committee chairman Rolando Andaya Jr., came up to P99 billion and which Andaya and Arroyo claim are unconstitutional.

Arroyo’s statements came a day after she authorized Zamora to talk to senators on how the two chambers could break their deadlock on the budget.

On Monday, Sotto and Lacson said Zamora relayed to them the message that the House leadership has agreed to withdraw its version of the proposed budget and to transmit the spending bill contained in the bicam report ratified on Feb. 8.

“We will wait for that action (withdrawing the budget sent to the Senate) and if it is submitted to us as ratified, I will immediately sign it and consider it an enrolled bill and send it to the President for signature,” Sotto said.

The Speaker apparently chose Zamora as negotiator because the San Juan congressman and his brother Manuel supported Lacson when he ran for president in 2004 against then incumbent president Arroyo.

Andaya is protesting the alleged decision to withdraw the House version.

He said no single House member could do that, and that it’s only the chamber in plenary session that could order the recall of its version of the proposed budget.

He said like the House, the Senate did a post-bicam report itemization of projects to support its share of lump sums.

Sotto had claimed senators did not touch anything in the proposed budget after the Feb. 8 ratification. 

As another budget deadlock looms, House members have called on Sotto and Lacson to stop acting like lawyers when even a Senate official has acknowledged there is “nothing unconstitutional” about detailed budgeting of pork barrel allocations.  The official was Yolanda Dublon, director general of the Senate’s Legislative Budget Research and Management Office (LBMRO).

“Both Senators Sotto and Lacson are now confused with their roles. They have stopped acting as legislators and now want to assume the role of lawyers for the Senate,” Coop-Natcco party-list Rep. Anthony Bravo, a deputy minority leader, said.

Nothing illegal

Unlike the Senate contingent that attended the meeting called by President Duterte to break the budget impasse, the House was represented by four lawyers – Reps. Zamora, Andaya, Majority Leader Fredenil Castro and Rodante Marcoleta.

“They have to show me where it is illegal,” Zamora said.

“Lump sums really have to be itemized, because the Supreme Court had ruled you cannot pass a budget with lump sums,” Zamora said in Filipino. 

“You have to itemize and the appropriations leadership in the House says that is itemization. If the Senate says that is not itemization they should come up with specifics,” he maintained.

Some House members, meanwhile, have taken a stand in defense of Sotto and Lacson.

“The chairman of the House appropriations committee has virtually usurped the powers of the entire Congress, including the Senate, by introducing on his own post-ratification changes to the budget,” a congressman who requested anonymity said, referring to Andaya.

“We already have a manifesto supporting President Duterte’s and Sotto’s resolve to reject the budget bill loaded with illegal last-minute insertions,” said a congressman belonging to the PDP-Laban party.  He declined to be named for fear of “vengeful funding cutbacks.”

“We have no choice but to speak out against the highly anomalous eleventh-hour revisions to the ratified budget, which are bound to heighten the hazard of costly ‘ghost’ projects,” the congressman, who hails from Mindanao, warned.     

“From what we’ve gathered so far, at least two portions of the ratified budget – involving funding allocations for public works projects and health facilities – were raided and subjected to arbitrary changes,” the source revealed.

“The allocations meant for several districts were either scrapped or reduced, and then the funds were transferred to other districts,” the legislator added.

The congressman warned that the anomalous redistribution of Health Facilities Enhancement Program allocations in particular has increased the likelihood of future “ghost” or non-existent barangay health stations, among other projects.

The HFEP covers spending for the construction, completion and equipping of barangay health stations, among other health-related infrastructure spending.

 “Last year, no less than Health Secretary Francisco Duque III exposed brazen anomalies in the construction of 5,700 barangay health stations worth P8.1 billion, the contract for which was sealed during the previous Aquino administration,” the congressman pointed out.

‘Getting confused’

A disappointed Sotto, meanwhile, asked the House to put its affairs in order and make up its mind if it really wants to have the proposed P3.7-trillion national budget for 2019 enacted into law.

“We’re getting confused. What gives? So we will just wait for them to make up their minds otherwise, we can wait until June 30,” Sotto told reporters.

“We really don’t know what is the intention, the decision of the House leadership, what they want to do,” he said.

He surmised the House leadership is having some problems based on what some sympathetic congressmen have been telling him.

He said the Senate remains steadfast in its position that it will not agree to anything less than the House resubmitting the General Appropriations Bill as originally ratified by Congress last month.

The Senate, he said, is looking at other options in case the House reneges on its commitment to withdraw the enrolled version it had previously sent to the chamber.

“We cannot agree to something that is violative of Article 170 of the Revised Penal Code, which is falsification of legislative documents. It’s as simple as that,” Sotto said, referring to the amendments made by the House to the GAB after it was ratified.

He stressed he has no problem with the House itemizing lump sums in the GAB but what was not acceptable was the “internal realignments” done to the budget.

“As far as we are concerned, we do not want to join them in that particular realignment. And if we do approve what we are going to send to the President, it is not what we approved. It is not what the Senate approved,” Sotto said.

Lacson said Zamora called him up again on Monday to reiterate the House decision to recall the enrolled GAB.

“They should first break the budget impasse within their own house. Meantime, the Senate will just wait when they will recall,” Lacson told reporters.   – With  Delon Porcalla, Paolo Romero