Senate starts plenary budget deliberations today
The Senate will start today plenary debates on the proposed P4.1-trillion national budget for 2020 amid apprehensions that some lawmakers will make last-minute pork insertions and risk delaying passage of the appropriations bill.
Sen. Sonny Angara, chairman of the finance committee, is expected to deliver his sponsorship speech for the proposed budget this afternoon, which would signal the start of plenary deliberations.
He said the Senate is on track to pass the budget measure based on a timetable that would have the General Appropriations Bill (GAB) on the desk of President Duterte by the middle of next month or third week of December at the latest.
He stressed the importance of passing the proposed 2020 budget on time, citing the economic impact of the approval of the 2019 General Appropriations Act.
“So critical is the GAA in fact that because we failed to pass it on time during the previous budget cycle, the country paid a price,” Angara said.
“One adverse impact was a slower GDP (gross domestic product) growth rate in the first half of the year. Another was that construction and repairs of thousands of classrooms were delayed, as were tuition fees of thousands of government scholars across the country,” he said.
There were also opportunity losses in terms of creating hundreds of thousands of jobs in the construction, public administration and defense, wholesale and retail trade, land transport and education sectors as a result of the government operating on a reenacted 2019 budget for the first four months of the year, he said.
“Indeed, it would have helped many Filipinos in their struggle against poverty if the government’s poverty reduction efforts weren’t derailed,” the senator said.
The country was on the brink of missing its growth target for the year because of the delay in approval of the 2019 national budget but as a result of the aggressive catchup spending implemented by some key agencies, the economy grew by 6.2 percent and is on pace to hit its fullyear target of six percent to seven percent, he said.
Angara believes all members of Congress are cognizant of the pitfalls of a reenacted budget and will work together to pass the GAB within the year.
“The experience has only underscored that for us to maintain our country’s momentum and upward trajectory, we can afford no more delays, especially when public spending can account for up to 20 percent of the entire economy,” he said.
With the Duterte administration now in the second half of its six-year tenure, it is building on its legacy and the 2020 budget has been crafted to support this.
As in previous years and as mandated by the Constitution, education will continue to take the biggest chunk of allocations.
He gave assurance that the Department of Education, Commission on Higher Education and Technical Education and Skills Development Authority will be given the necessary budgetary support to ensure the students’ needs are met and the roadblocks to their uninterrupted studies are removed.
The same goes with health, the demands of which continue to grow as the population increases and with the government committed to provide all Filipinos with free health insurance coverage under the Universal Health Care Act.
Improving and expanding the existing modes of public transport is one of the more critical programs of the administration and in order to complete as many of these at the soonest possible time, he said Congress will ensure they are covered by the necessary funding, but “work must be done continuously because any delays would be a disservice to the Filipino people.”
Sen. Panfilo Lacson earlier warned the reported plan of the House of Representatives to make some P100 billion worth of amendments to the GAB at the tail end of the budget process is an opportunity to insert “pork.”