THE proposed P5.024-trillion national budget for 2022 is expected to be enacted next week, Senate President Vicente Sotto III announced yesterday as he said that he will sign the ratified version of the General Appropriations Bill (GAB) today.
Sotto said the money measure will be transmitted to Malacañang by Friday, and is scheduled to be signed by President Duterte on December 28.
“I’m signing tomorrow, Thursday, then transmitting it to PRRD (Duterte). He is scheduled to sign (it) on the 28th (of December),” Sotto said in a message to the media.
Congress ratified the bicameral conference committee report of the budget last December 15 after days of discussions to reconcile the differing versions of the budget measure.
Sen. Juan Edgardo Angara, finance committee chairman, said a big chunk of the proposed national budget will still go to the government’s pandemic response aside from pouring additional funds for economic recovery programs.
Angara said the Department of Health got an additional funding of at least P20 billion budget on top of its P242 billion proposed by Malacañang in its National Expenditure Program (NEP).
Angara said a lion’s share of the P20 billion will go to Special Risk Allowance of healthcare workers and COVID-19 hazard pay, and other benefits for HCWs which were not included in the NEP.
Angara said the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) also got an increase in its proposed budget of P44.9 billion based on the NEP so that COVID-19 testing will be given for free to those who are looking for jobs.
Financial assistance will also be provided for displaced workers.
For COVID-19 vaccines and booster shots, he said the bicameral panel approved a budget of around P47 billion that will be under programmed and unprogrammed funds.
He said the controversial National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict was given a P17.1 billion budget, of which 95 percent, or roughly P16 billion, will go to its Barangay Development Program. This is the same budget that the NTF-ELCAC had this year.
It can be recalled that the Senate, during its budget deliberations, slashed P24 billion from the task force’s P28 billion proposed budget for 2022, leaving only around P4 billion for it.
The proposed budget cut was recommended after senators questioned how the NTF-ELCAC spent its P19 billion budget this year.
Angara said senators reconsidered their initial decision to slash the task force’s budget and agreed to give NTF-ELCAC the same budget for the Barangay Development Program for next year.
Angara said the additional budgets given to DOH, DOLE, and other agencies were taken from the budget of some departments like the Department of Transportation.
He assured the public that the budget cuts in some agencies will not affect the government’s infrastructure programs.
