Finance department confident Human Rights commission will be funded

THE DEPARTMENT of Finance (DoF) said it expects legislators to eventually agree to fund the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) in line with its original budget proposal, and downplayed concerns over its negative effect on foreign inflows.

“I am really confident that the legislature will come to a rational agreement on this budget,” Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III told reporters last week.

“I don’t know what will come out in the end but it seems that democracy is working,” he added.

Mr. Dominguez also said concerns about the impact of the House vote to give the CHR a P1,000 budget may have been overplayed.

“There’s a lot to talk about this. How will it affect things, I’m not sure, but I just got a report that the PSEi has hit a record high,” Mr. Dominguez said.

The stock market’s key index hit a high of 8,294.14 points on Monday, before closing at 8,162.70 yesterday.

“It seems that there are people who are voting with their pocket books for this administration’s policies,” Mr. Dominguez said.

The House of Representatives last week voted to grant the CHR a meager P1,000 budget, much lower than its proposed P649.48 million. The upper chamber of Congress however approved of the originally proposed version.

Both houses will meet at the bicameral conference committee to iron out its differences in the 2018 budget, before submitting it to the President.

The European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines has said that the House budget vote “sends a bad signal” to the international community. —