SENATE minority leader Aquilino Pimentel III yesterday said members of the bicameral conference budget committee acted beyond their mandate when they increased the appropriations in the P5.768 trillion proposed nation budget for 2024.
Pimentel, in an interview with CNN Philippines’ The Source, said that to correct the bicameral group’s indiscretion, President Marcos Jr. should veto the additional P455 billion in unprogrammed appropriations that was included in the final version of the 2024 General Appropriations Bill (GAB).
“The possible remedy is for the President to veto the excess so that the budget will come back to the levels as proposed by the President. If the President does not do this, therefore we have a case. This can be questioned before the Supreme Court on the basis of the constitutional provision which I have cited,” he said as he echoed the proposal of former senator Panfilo Lacson.
Unprogrammed appropriations serve as standby authority for the executive branch to incur additional agency obligations for priority programs or projects when the government’s revenue exceeds its target collection, and when additional grants or foreign funds are generated.
President Marcos Jr. said that he will sign into law the 2024 GAB on Wednesday.
The President, in a media interview before he left Tokyo for Manila, said he was “comfortable” with the way the 2024 budget turned out.
Marcos also said that the issue on the confidential funds involving the office of Vice President Sara Duterte is already a “settled issue.”
The OVP has requested a P500 million confidential funds for 2024, while the Department of Education has asked for P150 million also for confidential funds.
Both requests were turned down by the House of Representatives, which realigned the amounts to security agencies involved in protecting the country’s sovereignty and territories.
The move has caused a crack in the working relationship between Duterte and the House of Representatives.
Pimentel and Lacson have pointed to Section 25 of Article VI of the 1987 Constitution which states that Congress is not allowed to increase the appropriations recommended by the executive branch for the operations of the government as specified in the spending plan.
Congress, they said, can only realign or decrease the proposed national budget.
“Feeling executive branch na ang mga legislators po natin. Maraming inisyatibong naiisip, ilalagay ngayon sa budget but you know disregarding the Constitutional rule that we can concur with the budget proposed by the President. We can reduce it but we cannot increase it (Our legislators feel that they belong to the executive branch. They have a lot of initiatives in mind, then they inserted them in the proposed budget, disregarding the constitutional rule that… we can reduce it (budget), but we cannot increase it),” Pimentel said.
Pimentel said Congress “should have changed some of the items in the proposal of the President but not increased the amount” if they disagreed with the priorities of the Chief Executive.
“Because when we increased the amount, para kaming nagiging executive branch (Because when we increased the amount, we acted like we are from the executive branch),” he also said.
Pimentel has questioned the additional P455 billion unprogrammed funds inserted by the bicameral group in the ratified 2024 GAB. He said that from the P281.9 billion unprogrammed funds in the National Expenditure Program (NEP) prepared by Malacañang, it ballooned to P731.4 billion after the P455 billion was added.
He said that with the hike, the actual budget of the government has bloated to more than P6 trillion.
He also questioned the big change in the appropriations for the House of Representatives — from P16.17 billion in the NEP to P28.69 billion in the final version of the bicameral report.
Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri on Sunday said the additional P455 billion unprogrammed appropriations is legal “as long as the P5.768 trillion (national budget) is in the programmed funds.”
Zubiri said unprogrammed appropriations can only be funded once the government has extra revenues.
Former Senate president Franklin Drilon, in a statement last Friday, also saw nothing unconstitutional in increasing the unprogrammed funds.
“Unprogrammed funds are standby appropriations that are distinct from the approved fiscal program of the National Government. Transactions related to these funds are recorded when they become actual, contingent upon compliance with conditions specified in the Special Provisions of the unprogrammed appropriations in the General Appropriations Act,” Drilon said.
He said the primary purpose of unprogrammed appropriations is to authorize additional agency expenditure for priority programs and projects beyond the original budget.
The P5.768 trillion for 2024 is 9.5 percent higher than the 2023 budget of P5.268 trillion.
Among the priority program of the Marcos administration to be funded through the 2024 budget include the: Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education (UAQTE) Program, School-based Feeding Program, Provision of Textbooks and Other Instructional Materials, Social Pension for Indigent Senior Citizens, and the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps), among others. — With Jocelyn Montemayor
