A House of Representatives leader on Thursday warned his fellow lawmakers that the delaying tactics being employed by opposition congressmen could lead to a reenacted budget.
Majority Leader and Mandaluyong Rep. Neptali Gonzales II, in an interview, said questions over the quorum could delay the approval of the proposed 2015 P2.606-trillion national budget, or result in a reenacted budget.
“Maybe in the process of delays in the approval of the budget, it will eventually result in a reenacted budget…. Remember, this is an election budget [of the Commission on Elections],” he said.
Under the Constitution, if Congress fails to pass the budget bill for the next fiscal year, the budget law of the current year will be deemed reenacted and will remain in force until the new budget bill is passed by Congress.
On Wednesday night Gonzales and United Nationalist Alliance Rep. Toby Tiangco of Navotas almost had a physical confrontation when the latter asked for the adjournment of the session after Budget Secretary Florencio B. Abad failed to submit the complete report on the controversial Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) to the lower chamber and also due to lack of quorum, which requires the presence of at least 146 of the 290 lawmakers.
Despite a pending motion of Tiangco to adjourn, Gonzales ordered only for a suspension of the budget deliberation at around 10 p.m. on Wednesday.
The majority leader said the secretariat requested to suspend and not adjourn the session, because adjourning would compel the secretariat to prepare the journal overnight in time for Thursday’s session.
He said Tiangco should not let his issues about DAP get in the way of the budget deliberations.
On Wednesday afternoon the Department of Budget and Management already uploaded on its web site the DAP list that Tiangco requested. But the opposition lawmaker insisted that the list is incomplete.
Moreover, Gonzales said Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. already appealed to lawmakers to attend budget deliberations after Tiangco’s statement that he will question the quorum during plenary debates every day, or until the submission of the complete DAP report.
Gonzales said the lower chamber has scheduled a Monday-to-Friday plenary discussion of the budget, starting at 10 a.m., so they can pass the budget on second reading on September 26, or before the House takes a three-week break from September 27 to October 20.
Belmonte vowed that the Congress would scrutinize the appropriations measure thoroughly, while ensuring its timely passage this year.
Tiangco said he moved to adjourn Wednesday’s session because he wanted to put on record that Abad failed to provide the lawmakers the complete report on DAP. Some practices under DAP were declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. He said Abad’s commitment to provide the DAP report was also put on record in the House journal.