Senate President Vicente Sotto III on Saturday expressed confidence that President Rodrigo Duterte would exercise his veto power on the “unconstitutional” realignments in the proposed P3.8-trillion budget.
“If I know the President, he will veto that portion. In fact, he might veto some other items,” he said.
“Hopefully, the President will veto the portions that were touched after the ratification and were not part of the bicam,” Sotto added.
But if the President declines to line-veto the budget, Sotto said someone will bring it to the attention of the Supreme Court.
“Someone will surely file a petition in the SC questioning those unconstitutional realignments,” he said.
He said the realignment of some P75 billion worth of projects previously identified by the Department of Public Works and Highways for the government’s Build, Build, Build program was done after the bicameral conference committee ratified the proposed budget.
“It was not part of the itemization as what they are saying now. It was not part of what we agreed upon in the bicameral conference committee,” Sotto said, refuting the claim of House appropriations committee chairman Rep. Rolando Andaya Jr. that it was the Senate that diverted funds in the budget.
Andaya said the senators should stop the “striptease act now” amid the cuts in the 2019 national budget.
“I do not know why [the senators are] so afraid of making public their individual realignments. We have nothing to hide from the public. As responsible officials tasked with budget authorization, we must all be ready to defend our positions and decisions,” Andaya said.
“In the spirit of transparency and accountability, I have repeatedly asked the senators to give us full details of their realignments in the 2019 national budget. They kept us in the dark in the bicameral meetings, informal meetings, and even in our meeting with the President.”