A leader of the House of Representatives on Wednesday night defended the House-approved P4.1-trillion national government budget for 2020.
At the same time, Deputy Speaker Raneo Abu, in a privilege speech, said the money measure that was approved by the House and had been transmitted to the Senate would result in a more equitable distribution of projects among district and party-list representatives as they have been consulted in the matter.
“The powers granted to Congress over the national budget cannot be overemphasized. The budget can be an essential tool to stabilize the economy, redistribute wealth, create growth centers in less developed areas, and provide social safety nets to vulnerable sectors of society,” said Abu, representative of Batangas’ Second District.
“With this in mind, we have carefully reviewed the President’s budget proposal which was the basis for the preparation of the General Appropriations Bill,” he added.
Last Tuesday, the House transmitted to the Senate what the House leadership described as ‘pork-free’ 2020 General Appropriations Bill or several weeks after congressmen deliberated on the budget both at the committee level and in plenary session.
Abu said the House appropriations committee, chaired by Davao City Rep. Isidro Ungab, scrutinized the economic parameters based on which the executive has set the expenditure level. “With competing demands over limited public resources, we looked at how the appropriations were strategically distributed across sectors, agency programs and geographic subdivisions.
Having approved a constitutionally compliant budget, Abu said “I assure our countrymen that the General Appropriations Bill that the House of Representatives has transmitted to the Philippine Senate [October 1] is a budget that guarantees a better and more comfortable life for most Filipinos.”
“It is a budget that will support strong, sustainable, and equitable growth, a budget that will make the Philippine society more inclusive than what it was the year before,” Abu said.
He added that as district Representatives, “it is our responsibility to legitimately use the appropriations, lawmaking and legislative oversight powers of Congress to ensure that the well-being of our people are well-taken care of consistent with our constitutional mandate and of existing jurisprudence, it is our legal and moral duty to actively protect, defend and promote the interests of the people through the inclusion in the GAB—be it in the form of ‘institutional or individual amendments’—of local projects that are already vetted for relevance, quality and feasibility.”
In his speech, Abu also congratulated the House leadership under Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano and House Majority Leader Martin Romualdez of Leyte for what he called “the unprecedented achievement to approve the P4.1 trillion 2020 National Budget bill in record time.”
“Historically, budget bills are passed not earlier than October. This time, it took only 20 working days within a period of 30 days to get the job done in mid-September,” Abu said.
Congress went on break last October 2 for a month-long Halloween break. Sessions will resume on November 4.