Clark, Pampanga”•Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno said Monday lawmakers must do their duty so that the proposed P3.757-trillion budget for 2019 will be passed before the end of the year.
He said he remained hopeful the budget would be passed by Dec. 31 this year.
“They [lawmakers] can work during holidays, you know. In the US, they work on Saturdays and Sundays. So I said duty first before leisure,” Diokno said at the sidelines of the Sulong Pilipinas economic briefing at the Clark Freeport Zone.
On Nov. 20, the House of Representatives approved on third and final reading the proposed General Appropriations Act or the P3.757-trillion budget for 2019.
Lawmakers approved House Bill No. 8169 with a vote of 196-8-0, more than a month since they approved the 2019 budget on second reading on Oct. 3.
Diokno said with the recent change in leadership in both houses of Congress, there would not be any problems in the budget’s passage.
“The last two budgets we did not encounter any problem, so I do not know where is the [problem]… it’s been there…,” Diokno said.
He said any possibility of having a reenacted budget for 2019 would not affect the big-ticket infrastructure projects, but the smaller ones would.
“As far as the 75 major projects are concerned, I know that they will not be disrupted because we have a multi-year obligational authority… that is the nature of the big projects. But it’s the small projects that will suffer,” Diokno said.
He said his interpretation of a reenacted budget was that only the personal services, salaries and wages, and the maintenance and other operating expenses would be reenacted and not the capital outlays.
Recent reports said the 2019 budget was up for bicameral deliberations in the Senate.
