TWO members of Congress have vowed to scrutinize in their respective committees the Palace-proposed P22.46-billion supplemental budget.
Sen. Francis Escudero, chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance; and Liberal Party Rep. Isidro Ungab of Davao City, chairman of the House Committee on Appropriations, said in a recent interview that they will start their hearings on the supplemental budget next week.
They, however, asked the Palace and the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) to justify further the supplementary budget they requested for Supertyphoon Yolanda-hit areas.
They said the Executive department should first report to Congress where it spent the P137 billion, which had been allocated for the Yolanda victims, before they approve the supplemental budget for calamity victims.
“Under the 2014 budget, we have yet to see the utilization of the same. So hanggang ’di nauubos ’yun, we will always question any additional budget cover for Yolanda and other calamities,” Escudero said.
“Unless they justify that they actually need it, we’re not prepared to actually give it to them, given the budget space and legislative authorization given to them previously. Tatanungin namin at pagpapaliwanagin sila kung bakit hindi pa nagagamit ’yun. Bakit di pa nauubos ’yun nanghihingi na naman sila. We would have to wait for satisfactory answers insofar as those issues as concerned,” the senator said.
Under House Bill (HB) 5237, or the P22.46-billion supplemental budget, as proposed by the Palace through the DBM, the National Housing Authority (NHA) will get the big chunk of the fund, with P7.999 billion, for the construction of permanent housing for the victims of Yolanda.
The authors of the bill include Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr., Majority Leader and Liberal Party Rep. Neptali Gonzales II of Mandaluyong City and Ungab.
The P22.46-billion supplemental budget will be augmented to the P2.006-trillion 2014 General Appropriations Act (GAA) to support the implementation of priority projects of the administration.
Under the bill, besides the allocations for the NHA, P2.833 billion will be allocated for operational transformation plan for the Philippine National Police; P1.849 billion for the Department of Public Works and Highways, for obligations arising from implemented infrastructure projects; P1.942 billion for the Department of Social Welfare and Development, for updating of the National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction; P977.69 million for rehabilitation
of Light Rail Transit lines 1 and 2; and P715.36 million for
Supreme Court Enterprise Information System Plan.
Moreover, Ungab said the lower chamber will pass the P22.46-billion supplemental budget before the year ends to continue all the projects halted by the abolition of the Priority Development Assistance Fund and the Disbursement Acceleration Program.
“We will ask the [government] agencies and the DBM to give us a breakdown as to where the money [supplemental budget] will come from,” Ungab said.
“[However] I have not yet studied the supplemental budget because we are busy preparing for the bicameral conference committee [for the 2015 budget]. We’ll look into that this coming Monday and Tuesday. We are going to hold the committee hearing on the proposed supplemental budget,” he said.
Earlier, Kabataan Party-list Rep. Terry L. Ridon said the DBM and the House leadership make it appear that the projects in the supplemental budget they are asking for are of utmost importance but “a cursory reading of the bill itself proves otherwise.”
House independent bloc leader and Lakas Rep. Ferdinand Martin Romualdez of Leyte vowed that his bloc will scrutinize the measure “all the way down to the last centavo, since it has a lot of unanswered questions.”
According to Reps. Lito Atienza of Buhay and Jonathan de la Cruz of Abakada, most, if not all, of the funds being asked under the supplemental budget are already programmed in the 2014 and 2015 GAA but have not been fully accounted for.