SENATE Minority Leader Juan Ponce Enrile on Monday sought the removal of the P250-million intelligence fund from the P2.82-billion proposed budget of the Office of the President for 2016, an election year.
Enrile, in Monday’s deliberations on the P3.002-trillion budget, said the P250-million fund of the Anti-Crime Commission, which is led by Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa, should be deleted from the OP’s budget.
He said “intelligence gathering” was not a job of the Office of the President.
Enrile also objected to the P66-million allocation for the proposed Bangsamoro Basic Law pending approval by the Senate and the House of Representatives.
He also voiced concern over the block grant that was provided under the BBL, describing it as a “separate financial burden” on the national budget.
Senator Francis Escudero, former finance committee chairman, said the budget for the block grant was pegged at P10 billion, which was much lower than the P28.4-billion budget for the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.
Senator Loren Legarda, who took over the chairmanship of the finance committee, said the 2016 capital outlay had provided very specific line items that were responsive to the needs of the fishermen in the coastal communities, farmers, rural folks and indigenous communities.
She said they had introduced amendments that would support municipalities and villages in the country.
She said next year’s budget also deleted all the provisions referring to the budget priorities framework that authorizes department heads to reallocate funding “because only Congress has the power to approve fund allocations for government programs.”
Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto said that for 2016 Aquino’s last budget, if approved, would be 103 percent bigger than the last budget of former President and now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.