Senator Sonny Angara, head of the Senate’s finance committee, said Wednesday the proposed P4.5-trillion national budget for 2021, which he described as “a fighting budget,” would be delivered on time as they kicked off the budget deliberations.
“I say this with confidence that we will meet the deadline of a well-crafted budget ready for the President’s signature long before the year ends,” Angara said.
He said the COVID-19 pandemic would be the “one major macroeconomic assumption.”
Angara made his statement even as the Department of Health sought a bigger budget for 2021 for its fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.
Health Secretary Francisco Duque III and some aides briefed the House health committee on the agency’s proposed P203.74-billion budget on Wednesday before facing the appropriations panel.
The proposed budget is 27 percent higher than the Health department’s funds for this year.
Senator Panfilo Lacson, meanwhile, on Wednesday flagged P469 billion worth of re-appropriated and lump-sum projects under the proposed budget of the Department of Public Works and Highways for 2021, which he said were unconstitutional.
He said he observed a pattern wherein almost 3,000 items indicated in the 2020 General Appropriations Act were listed again with the same description under the National Expenditure Program for the next fiscal year.
In the House, the committee on appropriations on Wednesday suspended the 2021 budget briefing of the Presidential Communications Operations Office over the red-tagging issue against some lawmakers.
ACT Teachers Rep. France Castro moved to suspend the budget briefing of the PCOO after she took offense over the statement of Undersecretary Lorraine Badoy, who is also the spokesman of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict.
No lawmakers objected to the motion.
The Senate began its budget briefings with the Development Budget Coordination Committee, the interagency body that determines the overall economic targets, expenditure levels and budget of the government.
The DBCC is composed of the Department of Budget and Management, National Economic and Development Authority, Department of Finance, and Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.
Under the proposed budget for next year, the Department of Education still gets the lion’s share with P754.4 billion.
The education sector is followed by the Department of Public Works and Highways with P667.3 billion, the Department of the Interior and Local Government with P246.1 billion, the Department of National Defense with P209.1 billion, the Department of Health with P203.1 billion, and the Department of Social Welfare and Development with P171.2 billion.
The Department of Transportation has been allocated a budget of P143.6 billion while the Department of Agriculture will get P66.4 billion.
P43.5 billion and P27.5 billion were earmarked to the Department of Justice and the Department of Labor and Employment, respectively.
During the deliberations, Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III told the senators that the 2021 budget “will provide us with the tools necessary to rebuild our economy and decisively defeat COVID-19.
“How a country’s economy performs during COVID-19 and how quickly it can bounce back once the crisis is over will depend on its economic resilience,” he said.
BSP Gov. Benjamin Diokno said the Philippines entered the global pandemic with firm macroeconomic fundamentals.
Senate Minority Franklin Drilon, however, questioned the Department of Budget and Management’s reduction in the recommended allocation for the Department of Health, or from P153 billion for the current year to P131 billion.
Senator Cynthia Villar also questioned the cut in the the department’s budget, citing the need to improve its testing capacity, contact tracing and treatment.
Budget Secretary Wendel Avisado said they invested a huge sum to buy testing machines so that next year, the Health department would spend just for the consumables like test kits.
Senator Risa Hontiveros said although additional funds had been allotted to address the pandemic, those amounts remained inadequate to successfully solve the health crisis the country was facing.