House set on approving 13.767-trillion General Appropriation Bill tomorrow

The House of Representatives is set on passing on third and final reading the 2018 13.767-trillion General Appropriations Bill (GAB) on Tuesday, September 26.

House Majority Floor Leader and Ilocos Norte Rep. Rodolfo Fariñas said the House is on track to pass the spending measure this week

despite some technical glitches in the printing of the final version of House Bill (HB) No. 6215.

“Barring any printing technical difficulties, we will consider on third reading the 2018 General Appropriations Bill (GAB) on Tuesday, September 26, 2017, immediately after the roll call,” he said.

Davao City Rep. Karlo Nograles, chairman of the House Committee on Appropriations, said he expects swift approval of the budget bill as they have restored the budgets of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR), the Energy Regulatory Commission, and the National Commission on Indigenous People (NCIP) which were initially given only 11,000 each by the chamber.

“With the budgets of the three agencies restored to reasonable levels, there are hardly any contentious provisions left where the House and Senate might disagree,” he said.

He said the presentation of the GAB for third-reading approval had been delayed because they had to find the needed money to fund the “Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act” or the free higher education law.

Nograles said that with the oneweek delay in the printing of the final budget document, President Duterte will be able to sign the national budget for 2018 on or before Nov. 22, 2017.

The Senate has yet to finish its deliberations on the GAB.

The education sector gets the biggest chunk of the national budget for 2018 in the House bill at 1691 billion.

The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) has 1643.3 billion; the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG), 1172.3 billion; the Department of Health (DOH), 1 164.3 billion; the Department of National Defense (DND), 1145 billion; the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), 1138 billion; the Department of Transportation (DOTr), 173.8 billion; the Department of Agriculture (DA), 154.2 billion; the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), 133.5 billion; and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), 127.9 billion.

Nograles said the priority of the 2018 GAB is the delivery of social services. He said: “The strength of the budget is, No. 1, we’re still prioritizing social services. So even if we’re pushing for the Build, Build, Build program under the economic services sector of the budget, priority pa rin ang social services (social services is our priority), ” he said.

The proposed 13.767-trillion national budget is 12.4 percent higher than the 13.35-trillion 2017 national budget and is 21.6 percent of the Gross Domestic Product.

140 B for free tuition Malacañang welcomed the 140 billion allotted by the House of Representatives for the free college education in more than 100 state and local universities and colleges (SUCs and LUCs).

Presidential spokesman Ernesto Abella said the budget allotted by the House will help poor students. He expressed hope that the Senate will do the same so that more than one million students in public universities and colleges will have free tuition and miscellaneous fees starting June, 2018.

“We welcome the move of the House of Representatives for allotting 140 billion next year for free college education in state universities and colleges and locally funded colleges,” Abella said. “Free tertiary public education is a cornerstone of the social development policy of the Duterte administration.”

According to Abella, the 140 billion will provide additional stipends for very poor students and allow parents to borrow low-interest loans to help their children complete their education.

The allocation will also cover free technical and vocational education offered by tech-vocational schools under the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA).

Davao City Rep. Karlo Nograles said 130 billion of the 140 billion was taken from the Department of Education’s (DepEd’s) school building program.

Duterte signed into law the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act last August to provide all Filipinos with equal opportunity to quality tertiary education and give priority to academically able students who come from poor families.

Budget Secretary Ben Diokno had initially suggested that President Duterte veto the bill as the government cannot afford to shoulder it.