INCOMING Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez has said that the passage of the 2023 General Appropriations Bill (GAB) or the national budget will be the top priority of the 19th Congress in the First Regular Session under his leadership.
“First of all, there’s the budget,” he told reporters when asked on Monday night which measures will be prioritized by the House. “I don’t want to preempt the President’s SONA (State of the Nation Address) statement, but we will take our cue from his SONA priority message.”
Romualdez said some measures that were passed on final reading by either the House or the Senate in the previous 18th Congress and were refiled will also be prioritized.
“We will pass all these measures within the First Regular Session. Of course, the most important is the 2023 budget which we will pass well within the third quarter, or the last quarter rather, and the President will have sufficient time to sign it into law before the year ends,” he said.
“As you know the executive has the prerogative to submit the NEP (National Expenditure Program), or the proposed budget (within a) 30-day period from the delivery of the SONA.
We will expect the (submission of the budget) within that time of period,” he added.
President Marcos will deliver his first SONA on July 25 at the Batasang Pambansa in a joint session of Congress.
The Executive department is then expected to submit to the House the 2023 NEP, which will be the basis for the 2023 national budget law.
Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman earlier said the new administration has adopted the P5.268-trillion NEP of the Duterte administration for fiscal year 2023.
Romualdez, who is the president of the new ruling party Lakas-CMD, said he expects a smooth working relationship with the Senate under the administration of its new president, Sen. Juan Miguel Zubiri, who is his first cousin.
“No hindrances are anticipated. We have talked about it with economic managers, with our counterpart in the Senate and in the House. We have actually more time discussing that with (the) leadership and sometimes the Senate is maybe more deliberate, it will take time.
But we don’t anticipate any hindrances or any problems, we are looking forward to (a) very smooth and functioning Congress, both House and Senate,” he said.
Cagayan de Oro City Rep. Rufus Rodriguez urged the new President to increase the budget allocation of Mindanao in next year’s national budget by at least five percent or by P286 billion “because based on the 2020 census, it had residents totaling 26.3 million, or 24 percent of the country’s population of 109.6 million.”
“We request President Marcos to include this commitment in his first SONA on Monday,” Rodriguez said. “We contribute 17 percent of the nation’s yearly total output of products and services.”
Rodriguez, a former deputy speaker in the 18th Congress, pointed out that Mindanao was allocated only 13 percent or roughly P650 billion in this
