THE bicameral conference committee has created two groups to reconcile differences between the Senate and the House of Representatives versions of the proposed national budget for 2018.
The groups were given 24 hours to fine-tune the proposed P3.767-trillion general appropriations bill for next year, and settle differences between the two versions, including the removal of the P50.7 billion right-of-way budget of the Department of Public Works and Highways and the realignment of P900 million from the Philippine National Police budget for the war on drugs.
“We assigned the small group bicams to the chairpersons, who can take in any members of the bicameral conference committee,” Senator Panfilo Lacson said.
Rep. Karlo Alexei Nograles, chairman of the House appropriations committee, vowed to work immediately to reconcile the conflicting provisions of the two versions of the spending bill.
“What we will discuss is very crucial… We must study it because it is only now that we’ve seen the amendments made by the Senate,” Nograles said in Filipino.
“We need to see what the changes were in the budgets of the different departments. We hope there were no changes done to ongoing projects, because if those are changed, the government might not be able to complete the projects,” he added.
The House and the Senate are expected to approve and ratify the 2018 national budget before Congress adjourns for a holiday break on Dec. 14 to have it signed into law by President Rodrigo Duterte on Dec. 19.
Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III attended the bicameral conference meeting to appeal for additional P1-billion budget for his department.
Bello, a former congressman, said the P1 billion would be used as standby fund for the immediate repatriation to the country of hundreds of thousands of overseas Filipino workers should the conflict in Qatar, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia escalate.
Bello said P850 million will be used for the repatriation of OFWs while P200 million to P300 million funds will be needed for their reintegration or extending jobs and livelihood upon their return to the country.
One of the issues the bicameral committee must settle is the Senate’s realignment of the P900 million PNP budget for the drug war, to housing projects for police personnel and soldiers.
Senators realigned the budget after President Duterte took the PNP off the war on drugs and assigned the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency to take charge of it. But now Duterte is considering returning the PNP to the war on drugs.
Meanwhile, Lacson said the Senate, through his initiative, cut the P50.7 billion right-of-way funding for the DPWH.
Nevertheless, Lacson said funding on the right-of-way “accounts for the huge unused appropriations” in the national budget because the allocations are unspent until the end of the year due to continued unresolved rows in the construction of roads.
In the spirit of transparency and to ensure a “pork-free” budget, Senate Minority Leader Franklin M. Drilon asked the Senate Committee on Finance to justify the substantial additions and reductions that the committee proposed under the P3.767-trillion 2018 national budget.
This was after Drilon noticed that the budget of some agencies next year increased substantially in the Senate version, while the others suffered deep budget cuts.
The Senate passed the proposed budget on Wednesday. The bicameral conference committee is set to meet today to discuss the conflicting provisions between the House of Representatives and Senate versions.
“May I propose that the good sponsor submit in plenary the justifications for the amendments that are over P1 billion?” Drilon asked, to which Senator Loren Legarda, chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance, agreed.
Drilon also wanted that the proponents of the amendments to be specified and read into the record.
“We would like the committee to submit to each member of the Senate, and for the record, the nature and purpose of these changes in the agencies’ budget, particularly those with over P1 billion in addition,” he said.
“We cannot leave our people in the dark as it would only fuel speculations that pork barrel is still thriving despite the Supreme Court’s decision declaring it unconstitutional,” Drilon said.
The minority leader said the people would want to know why the Department of the Interior and Local Government, where the Philippine National Police’s budget is lodged, is proposed a substantial addition of P1.65 billion in the next year’s budget, as well as the Bureau of Customs, whose budget was increased by P1.49 billion.
The Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency, which was recently tasked to implement the administration’s anti-drug campaign, is proposed to receive an additional P1.21 billion in its budget.
In contrast, some of key agencies suffered a deep budget cut including the Department of Public Works and Highway, whose proposed budget for next year decreased by P26.40 billion under the Senate version. The budget of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources was also decreased by P1.84 billion.
Drilon also noticed that there are items in the budget whose appropriation decreased by billions of pesos in the Senate version. These include the Pension and Gratuity Fund, whose proposed budget under the Senate version decreased by P17.08 billion, as well as the National Disaster Risk Reduction Fund with P8.1 billion decrease, and the Miscellaneous Personnel Beneï¬ts Fund with a P4.66 billion reduction.
Hs said that some of the amendments may have been requested by the agencies or proposed by the members of the chamber and adopted as committee amendments by the finance.
“We would like the committee to submit for the record the additions and deductions made and what programs are affected,” he added.
Senator Grace Poe’s proposal of a twofold increase in the outlay of the First 1,000 Days program to P539.88 million from P269.94 million in 2018 is also part of the Senate’s budget bill.
Poe said the budget increase—approved by the Senate finance committee, was an important step in improving the nutrition of children, addressing the effects of health deficiencies and covering more beneficiaries.
“Various studies have suggested that nutrition interventions targeting the first 1,000 days of life—from the mother’s pregnancy to the second birthday of her child—are the most important as this provides a window of opportunity to an individual’s cognitive and physical growth. The First 1,000 Days Program also reduces mortality and morbidity rates and lessens prevalence of stunting and wasting among children,” said Poe.
Poe authored Senate Bill No. 161 or the proposed First 1,000 Days Act that seeks to establish a pre-natal and post-natal care program, with emphasis on exclusive breastfeeding, and provides support to a child’s life from conception to the child’s second birthday.
She manifested that her amendment was part of her commitment to “push for better social services.” She thanked Legarda for carrying “this important amendment” and her colleagues for supporting the amendment.
She urged other senators to rally behind the budget increase in the First 1,000 Days Program when the bicameral conference committee considers the budget bill in order to sustain it until the money measure becomes a law.
The National Nutrition Council, an attached agency of the Department of Health (DOH) and the lead implementing agency of the First 1,000 Days Program, said 24.8 percent or about 25 of 100 pregnant women are nutritionally at risk while 25.2 percent are anemic. For infants, 23.2 percent are born with low birth weight and only 28.4 percent zero to five months old are exclusively breastfed.
The NNC said only 15.5 percent of children aged 6-23 months meet the minimum adequate diet; 39.5 percent of one-year-old children are anemic; while 36.2 percent of the one year old are stunted.