After delaying 2019 budget, House’s only option is comply

You’ve lost the argument when you start lying and name-calling. That’s what House of Reps leaders did last week about their delaying the passage of the 2019 national budget. After meeting with President Rody Duterte and their Senate counterparts, they resorted to distortion and personal derision. They couldn’t do it outright; they got a stooge, uninvited to the Malacañang dinner, to attack. With much bravado the guy claimed that:

(1) “Senate President Tito Sotto is ‘hostaging’ the national budget.”

Senators in attendance readily debunked that: Sotto, Ping Lacson, Loren Legarda, and Greg Honasan. It’s the House that had kept the 2019 budget to itself, releasing it to the Senate only after two long delays. First time was when it amended the Malacañang proposal on second reading in early Oct. Instead of formally notifying the Senate to start its own plenaries, the House waited two months till end-Nov.

Second time was after the Senate and House separately ratified a consolidated version on Feb. 8. The House as is usual should then have printed the 12-inch thick, four-volume bill within a week, for transmittal to the President and signing into law. Instead, as Sotto and Lacson found out, House leaders tinkered with the bill approved by the Senate and House majorities. That took all of one month. Sotto warned he would not certify any altered version, lest he be complicit in falsifying a legislative document. Midmorning of Mar. 11, Speaker Gloria Macapagal Arroyo signed the altered bill and sent it to Sotto. Two hours later her gang began accusing Sotto of “hostaging” it to the detriment of the nation.

(2) “The delay was because the House leaders needed to itemize some lump sums, as agreed with the Senate.”

House appropriations committee head Rolando Andaya made that claim too over dinner with Duterte. But Senate counterpart Legarda disavowed any such agreement over health allocations. The Senate during earlier plenaries had approved P4 billion for detailed public hospital equipment. (Senate Minority Leader Frank Drilon had found Malacañang’s original P30-million outlay insufficient, and the Dept. of Health gladly submitted more procurement requests.) To that Andaya during the bicameral committee conference added an P11billion lump sum. Lacson openly noted he would recommend such addition for presidential veto as an illegal pork barrel. During the month-long House tinkering, 62 congressmen aligned with ousted Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez cried to Sotto. Part of the P11 billion supposedly are their district allocations, but Arroyo and Andaya redistributed it, at P25-million pork barrel each, to factionmates. When that hit the headlines, Duterte declared he would not sign anything illegal. Lacson took that to mean victory for his anti-pork cause.

(3) “The tinkered amount is only two percent of the P3.757-trillion national budget, yet Sotto and Lacson are blocking the 98 percent for salaries, operations, and projects.”

Hmm, Sotto remarks about the two percent – or P75 billion. That’s the very amount he reported to Duterte over dinner that House leaders also had tampered with. The P75 billion was from the Major Final Outputs 1 and 2 of the public works budget. Totaling P260 billion, MFO 1 and 2 were for startups of some of Duterte’s “Build, Build, Build” centerpiece infrastructure projects. Even those, the sticky fingers at the House converted into district pork barrels. Duterte visibly was irked to learn about it, Sotto recounts.

As for the two percent, Sotto retorts, “They should answer their own question: why can’t they forgo the two percent (pork barrel) to get the budget moving?”

The P75-billion MFOs and the P11 billion “hospital procurements” divvied up as pork are but two illegal insertions found so far. The Senate’s Legislative Budget Research and Monitoring Office is combing Arroyo’s signed alterations for more.

(4) “There won’t be elections this May as the 2019 budget is being ‘hostaged’ till Aug.”

A falsity, Sotto says. The midterm election budget was included in the 2018 national budget, passed as far back as 2017. The process began last year with the registration of new voters, purchases of voting paraphernalia, and filing of candidacies. In fact, Sotto adds, if the 2018 budget is reenacted for 2019, Comelec anomalously would have more than double what it needs for this year. That’s one of the many repercussions of the House’s pork gluttony.

(5) “Duterte doesn’t like Lacson’s retention of lump sums.”

That’s a sly distortion, Sotto clarifies. Lacson’s full suggestion was for the House to recall Arroyo’s signed alterations, and revert to the ratified version. Sotto and Arroyo would then certify the latter, including the lump sums, to the President. Duterte could do two things: either veto the lump sums outright as illegal pork barrel insertions of lawmakers, or keep them there but not implement them till necessary. Either way, Congress would then enact a supplemental 2019 budget, duly itemized, stripped of pork, and containing only what the executive wants. Duterte joked about not relishing the additional homework of searching out the budget insertions, but did not reject the only workable solution, Sotto explains the context. Flanking the President, Executive Sec. Salvador Medialdea and Finance Sec. Sonny Dominguez in fact nodded, Sotto adds. They’d be the ones to actually do the homework.

Duterte has said he “will not sign an illegal document.” That trashes the pork-laden budget bill. He has added he will not sign the budget unless first signed by Sotto. That leaves out too Arroyo’s post-ratification alterations that Sotto refuses to certify.

Arroyo may have no option but to comply. Lacson’s deadlock breaker is what Duterte, the Cabinet, and Sotto prefer. If Arroyo stands pat, they can wait till she is termed out as congresswoman on June 30 and a new Speaker is elected in Aug. Duterte, the Cabinet, and Sotto would remain in their posts. With the budget delayed till then, the government would be unable to pumpprime the economy to P500-billion a month. GDP could decline 1.5 percentage points from projected. Meanwhile, Alvarez has signified willingness to return as Speaker.