Senate, House get P3.8 billion budget cut for 2021

MANILA, Philippines — The proposed budgets of the Senate and the House of Representatives for next year would be P3.8 billion less than this year’s, documents show.

The proposed national budget approved by the Chief Executive and submitted by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) to Congress last week seeks to cut the budget of the Senate and House by P1.3 billion and P2.5 billion, respectively.

The Senate has sought an appropriation of P9.09 billion for 2021, but was only given P7.79 billion in the 2021 National Expenditure Program, a copy of which was obtained by The STAR from the House appropriations committee.

This proposed budget for the upper chamber of Congress is also P1.7 billion lower than its P9.5-billion budget for this year.

The House, on the other hand, sought P17.705 billion in budget for 2021, but was allocated with only P15.24 by the DBM.

This amount is likewise P600 million lower than the chamber’s budget this year of P15.81 billion.

But an insider said they expect lawmakers to move for increase in the budget of Congress in coming deliberations.

“How can there be budget cut for Congress when the administrative or overhead costs as well as maintenance and other operating expenses and personnel services will either stay in the same level or most probably increase?” argued a lawmaker, who requested anonymity due to lack of authority to speak on the matter.

During deliberations for the 2020 budget last year, the proposed budgets of the Senate and the House were increased by P2 billion and P1.8 billion, respectively.

Under the Duterte administration, the budget of Congress has consistently increased every year. In 2018, the Senate and the House received allocations of P6.26 billion and P5.83 billion, respectively.

The House is set to start budget deliberations on the proposed P4.5-trillion 2021 budget tomorrow.