House debates on 2023 budget almost done

THE House of Representatives is almost finished with plenary debates on the proposed P5.268-trillion 2023 national budget.

The budget debates pertaining to at least 76 percent of all government agencies have been finished by the House since last week’s start of plenary deliberations on the proposed 2023 national budget.

“The schedules and the flow of the plenary discussion have been executed flawlessly by our team of deputies in the Rules Committee and the Committee on Appropriations,” House Majority Leader Manuel Jose “Mannix” Dalipe said in a statement.

On Tuesday, the House began plenary deliberations on the proposed 2023 national budget after budget briefings by government agencies had been finished at the committee level.

The proposed 2023 budgets for these offices were scheduled for plenary debates this week: the Department of Tourism, the Department of Trade and Industry, the Department of Information and Communications Technology, the Department of Foreign Affairs, the Department of Public Works and Highways, the Department of the Interior and Local Government, the Department of Transportation, the Department of Energy, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, and the Office of the President.

Under Section 24 of the 1987 Constitution’s Article VI, appropriation bills “shall originate exclusively in the” House and that the Senate may propose or concur with amendments.

Section 22 of the 1987 Constitution’s Article VII mandates the president to submit to the Congress within 30 days from the opening of the regular session, “as the basis of the general appropriations bill, a budget of expenditures and sources of financing, including receipts from existing and proposed revenue measures.”

The Department of Budget and Management turned over the National Expenditure Program to the House on Aug. 22, 2022.