House insists on proposed P3.8-T 2018 budget

The House of Representatives will insist on its version of the proposed P3.8-trillion 2018 national budget, Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez said yesterday.

He said he and his colleagues are ready to accept the possibility of this year’s outlay being reenacted in case the House and the Senate would not be able to agree on a compromise on next year’s budget proposal.

“We in the House have discussed this, and we have decided to take a hardline stance and insist on what we have approved. That’s what we want to happen,” he said in a radio interview.

He added that if senators would stick to their version, then there would be a deadlock until the end of the year and this year’s budget would be deemed automatically reenacted.

“That would be beneficial to the executive branch because they can program whatever they want,” Alvarez stressed.

Asked if reenactment is what he would like to happen, he said, “No, but I get irritated. We gave the budget much thought, but when it reached the conference committee, there are so many who are having tantrums.”

The committee, jointly chaired by Davao City Rep. Karlo Nograles, who chairs the House appropriations committee, and his Senate counterpart, Loren Legarda, met on Thursday, Bonifacio Day, a day after the Senate approved its version of the 2018 budget.

Nograles told reporters that the House contingent was surprised and alarmed by the huge reduction the Senate has effected in the budget of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH).

He said congressmen would oppose the cut as well as the realignment of the P900-million funding for the anti-drug campaign dubbed Tokhang of the Philippine National Police to housing for policemen and soldiers.

Sen. Panfilo Lacson, who chairs a Senate finance subcommittee in charge of the DPWH budget, admitted he recommended a total of P68 billion in cuts that his colleagues approved.

“Those are funds for infrastructure projects with unresolved right-of-way (ROW) issues. The implementation of those projects cannot proceed unless those issues are resolved, which will take time,” he said.

He noted that in the past, funds for similar infrastructure projects were not spent and reverted to the treasury at the end of the year.

“Instead of the huge amount of money not being spent, we realigned it to housing, chalk allowance for teachers, health care, education and other social services,” Lacson said.

He revealed that several senators and congressmen with infrastructure projects have complained to him and appealed for the restoration of the realigned appropriations.

“I thought there were no more pork barrel funds,” he quipped.

He said among his Senate colleagues who pleaded for restoration was Cynthia Villar.

Sought to comment on Lacon’s statements, Villar said, “Who would have thought that we would be affected by the cuts? I saw some projects in Las Piñas that would be affected. If there is no problem, those projects should continue.”

She said Sen. Juan Miguel Zubiri also complained. Villar and her son Public Works Secretary Mark Villar once represented the lone legislative district of Las Piñas.

Her daughter-in-law, Rep. Emmeline Aglipay-Villar of party-list Diwa, has been designated the district’s caretaker when Mark Villar joined the Duterte Cabinet.