Senate OKs proposed P1.816-T budget for 2012

(Updated 5:42 p.m.) The Senate on Tuesday approved on third and final reading the proposed P1.816-trillion budget for next year. With 16 affirmative votes and one dissenting vote, the Senate passed House Bill 5023 or the General Appropriations Bill of 2012. Only Senator Joker Arroyo dissented. "This is the first budget entirely passed under the Aquino administration and we expect it to be submitted to Malacañang as early as the first week of December, which is in keeping with the wishes of President Aquino," Senator Franklin Drilon, chair of the Senate Finance Committee, said on Tuesday. He said the 2012 budget is higher by 10.4 percent than last year’s budget, which he said is 16.5 percent of the county’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Among the agencies with the biggest share of the budget were the Department of Education (P202.354 billion), Department of Public Works and Highways (P109.633 billion), Department of Defense (P106.880 billion), Department Interior and Local Government (P92.794 billion), and Department of Agriculture (P53.243 billion). On the other hand, the Office of the President was given an allocation of P2.595 billion while P8.961 billion and P15.075 billion were allotted to Congress and the judiciary, respectively. Drilon said that among the major amendments on the proposed budget was the return of the allocation for unfilled positions of fiscally autonomous agencies, including the judiciary, the Congress and constitutional commissions. The said allocation was initially placed into the Miscellaneous Personnel Benefits Fund (MPBF), a special purpose fund where money for vacant government posts was initially impounded. It is supposed to ensure transparency in the handling of government money. "We have restored the MPBF to Congress, judiciary, and other Constitutional offices to the respective budgets of these offices in complianace with the Constitutional mandate. We have maintained at least the 2011 bduget of the Constitutional bodies, not a single peso was reduced," he said. He said that they have also deleted any restrictions on the use of these funds. He noted, however, that they maintained the quarterly reporting requirements on the utilization of the funds. Drilon also said they put into a single fund the P1.764-budget for the Payapa at Masaganang Pamayanan (Pamana) program. He said the move was responsible for the apparent cuts in the budgets of the DILG (P1.718 billion); Department of Social Welfare and Development (P596.713 million); Department of Agrarian Reform (P17.623 million); and Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (P329.343 million). On the other hand, the senator said they brought back the P811 million cut by the House of Representatives from the budget for irrigation projects and also realigned P750 million from the DILG budget to the Local Water Utilities Administration for potable water projects. He said they also agreed with the House to give an additional P200 million to the State Universities and Colleges (SUC). However, he said they cut P100 million from the budget of the Department of Justice, which was supposedly intended for the construction of a new department building; P37.532 million from the budget of the Southern Philippines Development Authority, which was supposedly meant for feasibility studies; P100.943 million from the budget of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao; and P448.627 from the Department of Health, which Senate Majority Floor Leader Vicente Sotto III claimed was a duplication of the budget for vaccines for senior citizens. 'Excesses in the budget' Sen. Arroyo had earlier stood on the Senate floor to oppose the allegedly P200-billion worth of lump sum items in the proposed budget for next year. "This is a reform government and I don't see any reform in the budget. The function of Congress is to check the excesses in the budget. I think we have not done our duty," he said on Tuesday. Drilon, however, assured Arroyo that there was no P200-billion lump sum in the budget and that the lump sum appropriations for next year was "much lower" than the current year. But he could not immediately provide the total lump sum items in the budget. "If my interpretation is wrong I'll be very happy," answered Arroyo. The House of Representatives approved HB 5023 on third and final reading last October 11. The House and Senate will convene a bicameral conference to iron out disagreements in the budget on Wednesday at the Philippine Coconut Authority in Quezon City. Elected into the bicameral committee were Drilon, and Senators Ralph Recto, Alan Peter Cayetano, and Edgardo Angara. — RSJ, GMA News