Vice President Sara Duterte still has one chance to show up and defend their proposed 2025 budget at the House of Representatives, Marikina Rep. Stella Quimbo said Friday.
Although the committee on appropriations has approved cutting the budget of the Office of the Vice President from the proposed P2.1 billion to P733 million, this can be reversed during the plenary sessions which start on Monday, Sept. 16, Quimbo said.
“[It’s] subject to plenary debate beginning Monday. The 312 members will vote, participate in the discussions. So if someone wants to increase the cut, or does not agree with the cut, that will all come out in the plenary,” said Quimbo, who is senior vice chairperson of the appropriations panel.
She said Duterte, who did not attend the second hearing of the deliberations on her budget, can still go to their plenary debates and speak through its budget sponsor Rep. Zia Alonto Adiong.
Quimbo said the appropriations panel members decided to significantly reduce the OVP’s 2025 budget for three reasons:
– the hefty amount the OVP spent on its annual lease of more than 10 satellite offices nationwide, which a lawmaker described as a “waste of money.”
– the lawmakers also reiterated their observation that many of OVP’s programs were overlapping with other agencies, and thirdly,
– the Commission on Audit’s findings on the OVP’s low budget utilization rate as well as their programs that had “implementation problems.”
Quimbo said the panel decided to transfer the P1.29 billion to other agencies that already have established aid delivery systems in order to avoid wastage of public funds.
She also said that bharring last-minute hitches, the House of Representatives will approve on third and final reading the proposed P6.352-trillion 2025 national budget within the next two weeks on September 25.
Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez earlier committed that the House would finally approve the budget before the third and last regular session of Congress goes on its first recess on September 27.
He said the proposed outlay would support the Agenda for Prosperity and Bagong Pilipinas programs of President Ferdinand Marcos.
Quimbo said the House would hold marathon sessions starting at 10 in the morning.
“We are confident that it will end on September 25. Every day we will start [at 10 AM] until we finish the scheduled agencies for that day,” Quimbo said.
