President Rodrigo Duterte approved the 2019 national budget with the exception of some projects worth P95 billion Monday, ending a months-long delay brought about by constant bickering between the Senate and the House of Representatives.
At the heart of the often-acrimonious debate over the P3.7-trillion spending plan were accusations from both sides of irregular budget insertions or pork barrel, which the Supreme Court has declared illegal.
As senators and congressmen traded allegations of wrongdoing for months, the government operated under a reenacted budget, a move that meant no new funding could be released for key infrastructure that had been programmed for this year.
Even the few months of delay will have a detrimental effect on the growth of gross domestic product, the administration’'s economic managers say.
It was with some relief, then, that we learned that the President had finally signed the budget, notably with some line vetoes worth about P95 billion.
Although we have yet to determine whether the vetoed projects were indeed pork, and whether these originated from the House or the Senate, it seems significant that the Palace merely said they were rejected because they were not in line with the administration’s priorities.
The reluctance to characterize the vetoed projects as illegal pork suggests room for face saving on both sides, yet signals to Congress that this President will brook no nonsense in the national spending plan.
Now that the budget impasse has finally been hurdled, we expect the government to work post haste to put the people's money to work to make their lives better.