This time, two female senators are at loggerheads over the controversial P1-billion reduction in the 2016 budget intended for condoms and other methods of birth control/family planning.
Senator Pia Cayetano on Tueday took a snipe at Senate Finance committee chairman Senator Loren Legarda for allegedly deceiving the other senators over the “unethical and unacceptable” budget cut after Senator Vicente Sotto found himself the target of criticism for the P1-billion slash.
In a statement, Cayetano insisted there was no mention of any cuts in the line item budget for family planning.
Cayetano said that in the final version now reflected in the 2016 General Appropriations Act, there was a line item for family planning that had a P1-billion reduction.
“This was never reported to us,” pointed out Cayetano, a staunch advocate of Reproductive Health.
Cayetano said that Legarda’s claims that senators were informed of the amendments prior to their vote on the bicameral conference committee report on Dec. 14, 2015 had no basis.
“After looking into relevant documents, our office confirms the P1-billion cut in the DoH’s procurement of commodities under family health and responsible parenting,” she said.
“What was reflected in the bicam report that we approved was a P1-billion cut in the special provision on ‘purchase and allocation of drugs, medicines and vaccines.’
She said the details of the P1-billion cut were only made known following President Aquino’s signing of the General Appropriations Act on December 28, 2015,” Cayetano said.
“This was after the DoH discovered the reduction and exposed it,” she added.
Legarda earlier said all information about the 2016 national budget was available to both houses of Congress before it was enacted into law.
“All senators were given a copy of the bicameral conference committee report before they voted to ratify. The first page of the report shows both the increases and the decreases in the budget of all agencies including the Department of Health,” she said.
In the process of reconciliation of the differences between the General Appropriations Bill and the Senate proposal, she said the Bicameral Conference Committee had identified agencies that need to be provided additional funds and had also identified the sources to fund the proposed increases.
“The decision to cut the allocation for the DoH’s Family Health and Responsible Parenting [FHRP] was done after assessing its possible impact on the program. We took note that as of June 2015, the DoH status of funds showed that of the P3.27- Billion allocation for FHRP, only P955 million had been obligated or 29 percent. For the remaining six months, P2.3 Billion or 71 percent has yet to be obligated. The unused 2015 budget is still available in 2016 and the agencies may augment deficient items from their savings,” she explained.