Senate President Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III has made an assurance that the Senate will pass a more “realistic” budget for 2018 to eliminate underspending and avoid increasing taxes and foreign borrowing.
“We will be strict this year. We will have to come up with a realistic budget; a realistic budget so that we are not quarelling like this that we need to collect [taxes] that much from our people," said Pimentel, also the president of the ruling PDP-Laban.
Once the budget is already there, Pimentel said the amount would be more than enough for government spending.
"Just tell us what could not be implemented and why do you carry it over to the budget, tanggalin na natin yan. Let’s accept reality na hindi ninyo kaya,” he said.
The House Appropriations committee, chaired by Davao City Congressman Karlo Nograles, on Monday received the proposed P3.767-trillion national budget for 2018.
Education will continue to receive the biggest slice at P691 billion in the proposed P3.767 trillion national budget for 2018. Pimentel said the education budget represents a 12.4 percent increase or P41.7 billion more than the 2017 budget.
Pimentel also said the approval of a “realistic” budget would also ease the pressure on the legislative body to pass the comprehensive tax reform proposal in full.
He admitted that the proposed budget is pressuring the government to collect and borrow money.
Earlier, the President appealed to the Senate to pass the tax reform proposal as is.
However, several senators, including allies of the President, categorically said that they cannot give in to the President's request. They have described some provisions of the proposed new tax package as "anti-poor."
Senator Panfilo Lacson has argued that the government should first fix underspending under the Duterte administration. He said unused appropriations from 2016 amounted to more than half a trillion pesos or P589,293,569,000.
Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto said he also intends to question government agencies during the budget hearings if they are on track in spending their current year allocations.
Recto said the agencies’ “fund absorptive capacity” would also impact on the Senate debates on the administration’s proposed tax cuts and increases.
“We will be looking at both ledgers. Income and spending. Bakit ka hihingi ng ganito kalaking bagong revenues kung hindi mo naman nagagasta?" Recto said.