Palace-corrupted budget Written by Tribune Editorial Wednesday, 26 November 2014 00:00 font size decrease font size increase font size Print 3 comments Senators do not seem to be in the mood of rubberstamping the Malacañang-proposed budget anytime soon. This is only appropriate since some of them not only differentiate themselves from the lapdogs at the House who get their orders from the Palace but also, to due to the fact that Congress will actually be surrendering its power of the purse to the Executive in the 2015 allotment. That’s assuming that the stance of the senators is for real, and not for show of sudden independence. Sen. Miriam Santiago mustered energy, since nobody seems fit in the Senate to dichotomize the 2015 General Appropriations Act either due to partisan affiliations or utter lack of interest or mental facility, to bring forth arguments that were totally ignored during the House deliberations. Sen. Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. also zeroed in on the P13-billion errata allotment for water supply and low cost housing to the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) which he said appeared to be “lump sums.” DILG is headed by putative Liberal Party (LP) standard bearer Mar Roxas. The goal of the 2015 budget is clearly geared toward the building up of a campaign kitty or if not, is aligned with the pre-election build up of the LP since several components are left to the discretion of agency heads to disburse. Santiago said crucial to the manipulation of the 2015 budget to serve the interest of the incumbent is the redefinition of savings which the Supreme Court (SC) had already struck down in its decision on the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP). She noted in a privilege speech that “the 2015 budget invents its own definition of savings in Sections 67 to 70, particularly Section 68, which provides that savings can be declared at any time for whatever might be considered ‘justifiable reasons.’” She then compared the definition of savings in the 2011 budget law and the 2015 proposed budget. In the 2011 budget, Section 69 gave the meaning of savings and augmentation as “Savings refer to portions or balances ... which are (i) still available after the cancellation or final discontinuance or abandonment of the work, activity, or purpose for which the appropriation is authorized...” In the 2015 budget, Section 68 provides: “Savings refer to the portions or balances ... from any of the following: which she paraphrased: “(a) discontinuance or abandonment of the program, activity, or project ... which would render it not possible for the agency to implement the said P/A/P (Program/Activity/Project) at anytime.” She paraphrased: Savings is “non-commencement of the P/A/P within the first semester of 2015.” The old definition referred to final discontinuance or abandonment while the new definition was broadened to refer to discontinuance or abandonment at any time. Among the Palace acts ruled as unconstitutional by the SC in the DAP was “the withdrawal of unobligated allotments from the implementing agencies and the declaration of the withdrawn unobligated allotments and unreleased appropriations as savings prior to the end of the fiscal year and without complying with the statutory definition of savings contained in the General Appropriations Act.” The redefinition of savings in the 2015 budget, apparently another twisted idea of Budget Secretary Butch Abad, did not even cure the defect as mentioned in the ruling since it was clear that the method is unconstitutional and that the statutory definition of savings in the budget was a separate item with which the Palace needs to comply. The SC ruling already required that savings to be realized only after the end of a fiscal year. Several portions of the budget, according to Santiago, point to it being stuffed with pork in the guise of participatory budgeting. Marcos similarly asked the DILG to explain where it spent billions of pesos given to it for low cost housing projects in 2014 saying that the DILG is not even empowered by law to build housing units, which is given to the National Housing Authority or to create water supply which is the concern of the Local Water Utilities Administration or the Department of Public Works and Highways. Another P1.003 billion under the item “local government performance management-based Challenge for LGUs” was alloted to DILG rationalizing that LGUs are expected to function and give services in an excellent manner and are not to be compensated for doing their basic functions. Similar items in the 2015 budget were suspiciously heavily slanted toward the DILG in the guise of the supposed Grassroots Participatory Budgeting Program (GPBP). It appears that Santiago was talking about the GPBP being used when she revealed the time the Palace gave House members blank slips to list their projects for supposed funding which was how the unconstitutional pork barrel worked. With the budget law proven to be bastardized by the Palace, it would only be appropriate to run a fine-tooth comb through it even beyond the Malacañang-imposed deadline.
Posted on: Wed, 26 Nov 2014 05:22:53 +0000
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