AN ally of President Rodrigo Duterte said the House decision to cut the budget of the Commission on Human Rights to just P1,000 would cause problems for the administration.
Siquijor Rep. Ramon Rocamora, a member of Duterte’s PDP-Laban party, said the budget cut could lead to a deadlock in the bicameral conference committee, which could result in a reenacted budget.
“The way I look at it, if there is an impasse, the budget will be reenacted so we’ll be going back to the 2017 budget,” Rocamora said in an interview on radio dzBB.
The CHR, which the House sought to punish, would actually get more—P725 million—than what was proposed in the 2018 budget, which was P678 million, he said.
Senators, even members of the majority bloc, are against the House decision to slash the CHR’s budget.
Rocamora said allocating P1,000 was tantamount to abolishing the CHR.
“I want to help the administration, but the way I see it, this issue regarding the budget of the CHR is not helping the administration,” he said.
“Because it’s clear by giving them [a] budget of P1,000, you’re practically abolishing an institution which is put there by the Constitution itself. And you cannot change anything on the Constitution without amending the Constitution,” Rocamora said.
The House last week voted 119-32 to reduce the 2018 budget of the CHR to P1,000.
Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III, an official of the PDP-Laban, said senators will restore the CHR’s proposed budget.
On Sunday, Senator Loren Legarda, chairperson of the finance committee, vowed that all government agencies would receive their proposed budgets.
“I assure you that the agencies will have their budgets. I just have to read their budgets again, what are their activities, what are their programs. Of course, the people need to get their salaries,” Legarda said on radio dzBB.
“I assure you that there will be no agency with no budget,” she added.