The House of Representatives has moved to issue a show-cause order against Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno for his continuing refusal to attend the congressional investigations into the alleged irregularities in the preparation of the proposed national budget for 2019.
At a hearing conducted by the House committee on appropriations, Camarines Sur Rep. Rolando Andaya, Jr. said in his opening statement that “it is lamentable that [Diokno] continues to deprive us of the opportunity to question him directly on several issues hounding the DBM.
“We have provided him the proper forum to clear his name of any wrongdoing. For the nth time, he refused to honor the invitation of this committee.”
Meanwhile, the Palace said it will have no hand in the decision of the House appropriations committee ordering Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno to explain his absence in the proposed 2019 national budget hearings.
Presidential Spokesman Salvador Panelo said Diokno would have to decide for himself whether to heed the show-cause order issued by the House appropriations committee or not.
READ: Diokno’s ‘irregular insertions’ deleted
“For now, we will let him decide for himself. I will leave it to Secretary Diokno [about] his stand. If he feels that he needs the official intervention of the President, then he will raise that in the Cabinet,” Panelo told reporters.
“That’s the job of the Congress unless there is an abuse of the exercise that is given to them by the Constitution, we will not oppose.”
Leyte Rep. Vicente Veloso, a former Court of Appeals justice, filed the motion to issue the show-cause order against Diokno that was carried by the committee.
READ: Man up, Andaya tells Diokno for budget hearing
“We need to issue a show-cause order for him to explain why he should not be cited for contempt. We are not satisfied by the statement made by the Presidential spokesperson [Panelo] that the President [Rodrigo Duterte] does not want him [Diokno] to attend here,” Andaya said.
Veloso said he had not heard Duterte expressing his opposition to Diokno’s appearance at the congressional inquiry, specifically over the alleged P75-billion insertions in the 2019 national budget, among other things.
Diokno earlier denied all the allegations made by Andaya.
Andaya stressed the need for Diokno to show respect to Congress, a co-equal branch of the government.
“The economic managers can prod Congress to pass the national budget [into law]. But when they are invited as resource persons to congressional investigations on matters that concern them, they do not show up. That is the respect that you get from them,” Andaya said.
“He should explain his continued absence to a co-equal branch.”
Last week, Andaya said Public Works and Highways Secretary Mark Villar confirmed on record what he had been saying all along, “that DBM Secretary Diokno was the mastermind behind the P75-billion insertion in the DPWH allocations for the proposed 2019 national budget.”
READ: Lacson details ‘insertions’, rules out horse trading
“Now that Secretary Villar has categorically denied any responsibility in the P75-billion insertions, it is time for Secretary Diokno to explain fully his role in the conspiracy that stalled the congressional deliberations on the 2019 budget,” Andaya said. With Nat Mariano