Budget bicam still on track
With only three weeks left to pass another budget measure, Congress is still on-track in crafting the final version of the P4.1-trillion national budget for 2020 but its ratification is already seen on Tuesday.
Sen. Sonny Angara, who leads the Senate contingent in the bicameral conference committee (bicam) for the 2020 General Appropriations Bill (GAB), announced on Sunday that the scheduled bicam hearing on Monday was moved on Tuesday as they are not yet done with the negotiations with House Appropriations Chairman Isidro Ungab.
“We are approximately 90-95 percent reconciled with the House,” Angara told the Daily Tribune when asked about the budget deliberations’ progress.
“The discussions are moving but senators asked for a one-day period to review the reconciled Bicam version of the budget so to give that, we will likely meet Tuesday for approval (in bicam),” he said.
Asked when is the possible ratification of the GAB in the Senate, Angara said “more likely is Tuesday.”
He also said that the institutional amendments introduced by Senator Panfilo Lacson in the Senate budget version were considered in the bicam version of the 2020 budget.
Sen. Lacson’s proposals like placing some limits on administrative costs and having the possibility of greater local projects have also been adopted in some form in the budget general and special provisions,” he said.
Last week, Senate President Vicente Sotto III announced that the Senate might ratify the final budget measure as early as Monday to prevent the delay of budget approval like what had happened to the 2019 General Appropriations Act (GAA).
“We are on track. I understand that the bicam, there will be very few points of disagreement. So I see that when we go back on the 9th, we might ratify it already,” Sotto previously told reporters.
Asked if there are looming disagreements between the House and the Senate like what had happened in the 2019 GAA, Sotto said: “I don’t foresee anything like that because anything that is done before the bicam during the bicam and before the ratification it was part of the budget preparation. What the (House) did last year, they still amend it after ratification, after the printing,” Sotto added.
To recall, the 2019 national budget was only approved last April 2019 leaving the government with no choice but to operate with a reenacted budget for the first four months of the year.
This caused economic slowdown and major backlash on the government actual spending.