The House of Representatives’ committee on appropriations has said the Commission on Elections will get the P854-million budget for the Bangsamoro Organic Law plebiscite in January 2019.
At a congressional hearing, the committee, presided by the committee vice chairman, Doy Leachon of Oriental Mindoro, said the House would make funds available for the implementation of the BOL—a priority mandate of the Duterte administration.
House Majority Leader and Camarines Sur Rep. Rolando Andaya Jr. earlier said the 2019 national budget did not include any funding for the implementation of the newly signed BOL.
Andaya said the House of Representatives had to find funding sources for the BOL, adding that “budget space must be created in the 2019 budget for these mandates which were not factored in when the proposed P3.757-trillion outlay was being finalized by Malacañang.”
In a related development:
• Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto said that like every law, the BOL had a cost.
“Scratch the surface of every provision, and a price tag lies underneath,” he said.
Unfortunately, he noted that “we still do not know the full cost of this measure because we only have estimates and approximations.
“What we were told were the programs and the projects, but not their price. This bill is a ledger of intentions, without tallying the cost of each,” he said.
But the BOL, Recto said, is our promissory note to a people. He said it was now up to us to redeem every single item promised therein.
He said “We must not default.
“Whatever the amount, we must fund it. A costly peace is better than a cheap war.”
During the debates in the BOL, Recto said he ran numbers on what the BBL would cost.
He admitted though that his estimates up to the last minute of floor discussions, remained unrefuted.
Using the all-in, the zero-based budgeting approach, this bill would cost P369 billion in the first three years, P109 billion in the first year, and P1.981 trillion in 10 years.
President Rodrigo Duterte is scheduled to sign into law this week the BOL which replaces the current Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao with into the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.
The BOL shall be the enabling law for the 2014 Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro signed between the Aquino administration and the secessionist group Moro Islamic Liberation Front.
This developed as the House appropriations committee also tackled the P2.069-billion Comelec deficit in its 2019 National and Local Elections budget, which is intended for payment of teachers’ honorarium and other benefits as mandated by the Election Service Reform Act.
Leachon said the poll body might consider charging the deficiency from the 2019 preparatory activities budget, as Budget and Management Secretary Benjamin Diokno said in a letter to Comelec chairman Sheriff Abas.
“Would you also affirm to us how much the continuing appropriation is, because as we recognize under the Constitution, you have your fiscal autonomy. So with other allotments that remain unspent will form part of your continuing appropriation that can be reflected still for 2019,” Leachon said.
Also during the hearing, the Comelec services department director Zita Buena-Castillon disclosed that the Commission now had a total of P850 million that could be appended to the 2019 budget — P150 million from the continuing appropriation and P700 million excess allotment for the 2018 preparatory activities budget.
