Former National Treasurer and Social Watch convener Prof. Leonor Briones on Thursday said House members should be made accountable to their constituents for allowing Malacañang to flex its muscle in determining the spending of the P2.606-trillion budget that was approved on Wednesday on third and final reading without scrutinizing huge amounts of lump sum that won’t be subject to auditing.
Briones, along with other civil-society groups, urged House Speaker Sonny Belmonte in a letter to issue a memorandum to compel individual lawmakers to state their rationale for approving the proposed budget in its current form.
Among the concerns raised by the civil-society groups include the 269-page errata report on the budget; Malacañang’s redefinition of “savings”; and the presence of lump sums in the form of the P378.6-billion special-purpose funds.
Briones said the 269-page errata was earlier withdrawn by the Department of Budget and Management but was resubmitted and approved during the small committee deliberation on amendments. She added that Malacañang’s move to pool savings and authorize spending has also led to the creation of funds under the Disbursement Acceleration Program, which was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.
“The DAP essentially strips Congress of its authority over the budget through the pooling of ‘savings’ was a mechanism for illegal cross-border transactions in government, and was used to fund projects not in the Appropriations Act,” Briones said.