Lacson: Senate could adopt House version of budget to speed up enactment

Senator Panfilo “Ping” Lacson on Sunday said it is possible the Senate may simply adopt the House of Representatives version of the proposed 2020 national budget

to speed up its enactment.

Lacson said he suggested this to Senate President Vicente Sotto III and Senate minority leader Franklin Drilon.

Lacson said doing so would also prevent some congressmen from making further amendments.

“For the budget, one of the things we are studying, and which I have already discussed with Senate President and Senator Drilon, in consultation with Sen. (Sonny) Angara, that in order to make the process faster... and it may be for the best, is maybe we can just adopt the House version,” Lacson said in an interview on GMANews TV.

“If we do that, none of those lawmakers who hold proposed amendments for the bicam (bicameral conference committee) can do anything about it. Because there will be no more bicam if we adopt it,” he said.

So far, Lacson said he sees nothing irregular so far in the House-approved

14.1-trillion General Appropriations Bill (GAB).

He said the only changes he saw there are the P9.5-billion institutional amendments that Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano announced before sending the bill to the Senate.

The anti-pork barrel crusader, however, pointed out there are still “unclear” items in the National Expenditure Program (NEP) worth P20 billion that are parked in different agencies, particularly in the proposed budgets of the Departments of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) and Interior and Local Government (DILG).

But he said the 120-billion cannot be considered “pork” allocations since it was vetted by the executive departments themselves.

“But if we can forgive that...the P20-billion, we can leave it to the DBM (Department of Budget and Management) to realign the funds,” he said.

At the same time, Lacson said he finds the current roster of House members to be “most behaved” compared in the past, where most congressmen were embroiled in the amendments of the national budget.

“In fairness with the present HOR, I can probably say that this is the most-behaved counterparts in our time.

“They announced a 19.5-billion institutional amendments... And it was only really 19.5-billion as announced. I’m wondering what actually happened, why it was no longer like before when the amendments reached more than 175-billion,” he pointed out.

“Now, they only committed to provide funds for NFA (National Food Authority) for palat; DOH (Department of Health) to augment the funds for Universal Health Care. It was just that,” Lacson noted.