Senate Finance chairman Sherwin Gatchalian and House Appropriations Committee chairperson Mikaela Angela Suansing (1st District, Nueva Ecija) expressed optimism that the budget bicameral conference could conclude on its fourth day, Wednesday, December 17.
In a chance interview with ABS-CBN past midnight on Wednesday, December 17, Gatchalian mentioned that they were aiming to finalize the deliberations that day, emphasizing that the next step would be the most challenging, both physically and in terms of calculations.
“Well, target namin (December 17) matatapos na, and hopefully kasi next sa bicam is putting the budget together, ‘yun ang madugo, physically and computation-wise,” he said.
(Well, our target is to finish by December 17, and hopefully, because the next stage in the bicam involves consolidating the budget, which is quite complicated, both physically and computation-wise.)
“We want to transmit this to Malacanang enough time before the New Year’s… kaya naman,” he added.
(We want to transmit this to Malacañang with enough time before the New Year. We can do it.)
He noted that the newly submitted figures from the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) caused a four-hour delay.
“This morning nagpadala sila ng sulat, first of all, nag-aapologize kasi yung binigay nila very general yung numbers. So this morning, inumpisahan na namin i-apply yung bago nilang formula, 10,000 projects kasi eh kaya matagal. Balak namin unahin na (today) pero hindi talaga kakayanin,” Gatchalian said.
(This morning, they sent a letter apologizing because the numbers they provided were very general. So, this morning, we started applying their new formula to 10,000 projects, which is why it took so long. We intended to prioritize that today, but it was just not feasible.)
For her part, Suansing expressed confidence that the President would be able to sign the budget before the year concludes.
“Ginagawa namin lahat, sinisiguro namin na the President will be able to sign the budget before this new year, lagi nga namin sinasabi, magtatrabaho po kami para po hindi tayo magkaroon ng reenacted budget,” she said.
(We are doing everything we can to ensure the President will be able to sign the budget before this New Year. We always say that we are working to avoid a reenacted budget.)
The bicameral conference meeting concluded at 1 a.m. on Wednesday, December 17.
The committee still has to deliberate on the budgets of eleven more agencies.
