Senators “cannot kill themselves” to tackle the proposed P3.757-billion budget for 2019 just to pass it before Congress adjourns, Senator Panfilo Lacson said Tuesday.
READ: House sets ultimatum on 2019 budget
He said a congressman or congresswoman would get an additional P1.5 billion on top of the P60-billion pork divided among House members.
Lacson said it was impossible for them to finish the budget before the year ended since they had to scrutinize the 271 items in the agenda.
READ: House averts reenacted budget
He said that, based on their computation, it would appear that one needed to finish with one government agency for 15 minutes.
“How would you do that?” said Lacson as he took a swipe at the House members’ insertion of what appeared to be “pork barrel” in the national capital outlay.
“So we focused, we agreed to follow the sequence but we cannot kill ourselves to finish the period of interpellation in three days,” Lacson said.
“That’s the schedule: Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. By December 7 Friday, we need to close the period of interpellation, and we have to tackle 271 agencies,” he said.
“So on the assumption of 24 hours a day for three days, we have to deliberate without going home, without taking our meals. It would seem that only 15 minutes was allocated for each agency.”
Lacson has stood his ground that they could not finish the budget for the President’s signature this year.
“It is impossible,” Lacson said but added he could not give an exact date when they would finish with the budget. He said they could not predict who among his colleagues in the Senate would interpellate.
He said the Senate. Could not be blamed for a possible impasse in the budget.
“The House had the National Expenditures Program for four months, and we have just three days?” Lacson said.
He said next year’s NEP was transmitted to them by the House in the middle of July.
“Of course we received the NEP, but ideally, we were waiting for the interpellation, we were waiting for the House version before we tackled the budget.
Senate President Vicente Sotto III also took a swipe at House members for delaying the budget.
READ: Sotto: Reenacted budget likely as time ticks away
“Would they expect us to finish the budget in a matter of three days when it was with them for more than three months?” he said.
“Why would they make us suffer for the delay which they caused?”
Sotto said they would not let go of the budget without thoroughly digging deeper into the “insertions” made by House members.