Senators on Wednesday voted 22-0 to approve on third and final reading the proposed P4.1-trillion national budget for 2020.
Senator Juan Edgardo Angara read the committee amendments to the House version of the bill, including the addition of P6 billion to the Department of Education’s Last Mile School Program.
The department will also get an extra P5.17 billion for its voucher program for private senior high school.
The budget for state universities and colleges was also increased by P1.158 billion.
The government-run Philippine General Hospital will get a P644-million increase over its House allotment.
Angara said P920 million was allocated to the Philippine Army to activate one infantry division to directly address the continuing threat posed by the Abu Sayyaf Group in Basilan, Sulu, and Tawi-Tawi.
The Philippine National Police will be getting P1.529-billion increase for various programs.
It was unclear how the budget changes would be funded.
The Senate approval paves the way for senators and representatives to reconcile differences in the versions of the budget bill in a bicameral conference committee.
Malacañang on Wednesday welcomed the passage of the 2020 national budget.
Presidential Spokesman Salvador Panelo said the budget aims to fund programs and projects that will help accelerate investments in public infrastructure, improve anti-poverty measures, and intensify employment generation.
“The public is assured that the President will carefully scrutinize whatever appropriations bill that will be transmitted to his office by Congress to ensure that the same would be in accordance with the imperatives of the Constitution and responsive to the needs of the Filipino people before it becomes a law,” Panelo said.
The Executive branch, Panelo added, hopes that the bicameral conference committee of the legislature will reconcile the conflicting provisions found in the two versions of the proposed budget “without prolonged partisan discussion and undue delay.”
The government was forced to run on a reenacted budget this year for four months following wrangling among lawmakers over alleged pork insertions in the national spending plan.
President Rodrigo Duterte has previously certified the 2020 national budget as urgent.
Senator Panfilo Lacson, meanwhile, said there is a need to download resources directly to local government units to prevent lawmakers from making insertions in the budget and provide for a more equitable distribution of resources.
In a televised interview, Lacson pointed out that congressmen and district representatives, especially those at loggerheads with their governors and mayors, would rather insert budgetary appropriations for their districts when the National Expenditure Program is submitted to the House of Representatives.
But he said he felt the “wiser solution” would be to take a bottom-up approach.
Also on Wednesday, Senator Sherwin Gatchalian, chairman of the Senate economic affairs committee, urged senators to investigate the plan of the government to borrow money—including a P515 billion loan from China—for its Build, Build, Build infrastructure program.
In particular, Gatchalian said he wants to scrutinize the China loan which states that 50 percent of the materials used would come from China and that Chinese workers would be hired.
These conditions, Gatchalian said, would deprive Filipinos of jobs.
Senator Francis Pangilinan, meanwhile, has filed a bill seeking to augment the 2019 budget with P6 billion to immediately provide unconditional cash transfer to rice farmers.
Senate Bill 1191 proposes a P6-billion supplemental budget for direct cash transfers to vulnerable rice farmers who are planting one hectare or less, “as compensation for the reduction or loss of farm income arising from the influx of imported rice.”
Quezon City Rep. Christopher Belmonte on Tuesday filed a counterpart measure. With PNA