THE House of Representatives is expected to receive today Malacañang’s proposed P5.024-trillion national budget for 2022 when it resumes plenary session following a two-week suspension due to the imposition of enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) in the National Capital Region.
The House is also anticipating Malacañang’s submission of the National Expenditure Program (NEP) which contains the proposed national budget.
Once the NEP is received by Congress, the House committee on appropriations will immediately begin budget deliberations.
Speaker Lord Allan Velasco said the House has to work double time on pending measures that should have been taken up in the last two weeks “to make up for the time lost during the ECQ.”
During the August 6 to 20 lockdown period, all meetings were held via videoconferencing. Offices were closed and only secretariat personnel with extremely essential tasks were allowed to report physically to the offices.
Malacañang last week said the 2022 proposed budget includes about P241 billion for COVID-19 response, with some P45.4 billion for the purchase of vaccine booster shots under the health department’s “unprogrammed appropriations.”
The government is also allotting at least P982 million for the establishment of the Virology Science and Technology Institute for vaccine development, P140 million for the improvement of the Philippine Genome Center which sequences specimens to detect COVID-19 variants, P11 billion for the repatriation of Filipino working overseas, among others.
Camarines Sur Rep. Luis Raymond Villafuerte said in case of delay, the House should still hold pre-budget discussions while waiting for the Palace to submit the NEP.
Villafuerte said the House should prioritize deliberating on a substitute bill defining tax rates for proprietary schools and allowing them amid the pandemic to enjoy a 1 percent preferential tax rate until June 30, 2023.
House Bill o. 9913 seeks to reduce the preferential tax rate on proprietary educational institutions to 1 percent from July 1, 2020 to June 30, 2023, after which the preferential rate will be set at 10 percent.
HB 9913 was filed in response to the plea of the Coordinating Council of Private Educational Associations of the Philippines on a recent Bureau of Internal Revenue regulation increasing the tax rate of private educational institutions to 25 percent from 10 percent.
