(Eagle News) — The House of Representatives has decided to recall its enrolled budget bill that included lumpsum appropriations which were inserted or made after both the Senate and House had already ratified the 2019 budget.
This was relayed to reporters by Senator Panfilo Lacson on Monday, March 18, during the groundbreaking of the new Senate building.
Lacson said San Juan Representative Ronaldo Zamora called him up Sunday night to inform him about the Lower House’s change of heart.
“Rep Zamora called me yesterday to relay the message that the House of Representatives leadership has already agreed to recall their version of the enrolled budget bill today,” Lacson said.
Earlier, Lacson criticized the House of Representatives’ leadership for trying to hide what he said were realignments worth P95.1 billion in the P3.757 trillion national budget.
This was after both the Senate and the House had already ratified the national budget on February 8 after weeks of debate and acrimonious exchanges.
He said that what the House leadership did post-ratification was against the Constitution.
In a tweet on Sunday, Lacson said: “National budget: Don’t be fooled by congressmen tasked to make us believe they merely ‘itemized’ when in fact, they arbitrarily realigned to favored districts several appropriations already approved by both houses of Congress, thereby sacrificing already vetted infra(structure) projects.”
“Trying to hide their unconstitutional post-ratification budget realignments by claiming they wanted to itemize lump sums in the name of transparency. If that’s not irony — or hypocrisy, I don’t know what is,” he added.
With the House of Representatives deciding to withdraw its itemizations inserted in the already bicam-ratified national budget, it is expected that the national budget will would finally be signed by the leaders of both the Senate and the House, and be submitted for President Rodrigo Duterte’s signature in Malacanang.
(with a report from Meanne Corvera, Eagle News Service)
