Senators brush off budget dagdag-bawas

Senators have brushed off allegations from a leader of the House of Representatives that they lopped off P3 billion in the fund meant to procure palay from local farmers in the proposed P4.1-trillion national budget for next year, saying the allocation was intact.

Senate President Vicente Sotto III and Sen. Sonny Angara yesterday said the P3 billion out of the total P10 billion put in by the House was simply transferred to the Land Bank of the Philippines.

“Transferring funds from (the National Food Authority) to Land Bank is not ‘dagdagbawas (padding-shaving).’

What I know is that (transfer) was an institutional amendment,” Sotto told reporters.

Sotto was referring to claims by Albay Rep. Joey Salceda that the P3-billion cut was part of the “P235-billion dagdagbawas” that senators made in the 2020 General Appropriations Bill (GAB).

Angara said the amendment was proposed by Sen. Cynthia Villar, who chairs the finance sub-committee for agriculture, and the P3 billion lodged in Land Bank will still be used for procurement of palay.

Angara added that the realignment is still being finetuned and that the Senate contingent to the bicameral conference committee on the GAB would justify the move with their House counterparts when they resume meeting this week.

The bicameral committee is convened to allow the Senate and the House to reconcile the conflicting version of a bill they have approved, in this case, the GAB. President Duterte suggested P7 billion for the NFA for palay procurement in the budget or the National Expenditure Program (NEP) he proposed to Congress last August.

A special provision in the NEP states that the funds “shall be used for the implementation of the rice buffer

stocking program… (the) buffer stock shalal be sourced solely from local farmers.”

The House augmented NFA’s palay procurement fund by P3 billion, increasing it to P10 billion, before submitting the GAB to the Senate last

September.

The Senate approved the GAB last Wednesday but not before making billions of pesos worth of amendments by cutting appropriations to underspending agencies like the Department of Transportation (DOTr).

He added that the budget of the Department of Health was also increased to support the agency’s vaccination drive and other programs to protect children.