By Joann Villanueva/PNA
CLARK, Pampanga — Budget and Management Secretary Benjamin Diokno said the administration’s ambitious program will not come to a complete halt just because of the possible reenactment of the 2018 national budget.
“As far as the 75 major projects are concerned, I know that they will not be disrupted because we have multi-year obligational authority. That’s the nature of the big projects,” he said in a briefing at the sidelines of the consultation event with the private sector and other stakeholders dubbed “Sulong Pilipinas” here Monday.
The Budget and Management chief, however, pointed out that “it’s the small projects that will suffer.”
Meanwhile, he remains hopeful that lawmakers will exert greater effort to pass the proposed PHP3.757-trillion 2019 national budget until the end of this year, citing that the Senate is waiting for the House of Representatives to submit its version of the budget measure.
“The role of the Senate is to concur our proposed amendments, they cannot prepare their own bill so if they want to do it, they can finish it,” he said, citing that the Duterte administration submits the proposed budget on the same day as the State of the Nation Address (SONA), earlier than the 30 days after SONA set under the law.
“They can work on holidays, you know. In the US, they work on Saturdays and Sundays. Duty first before leisure,” he said.
Diokno also explained that based on his understanding a reenacted budget will only finance personnel services or the salaries and wages, and the maintenance and other operating expenses (MOOE).
“The capital outlays are not reenacted because the projects have been done before in the previous year,” he said.
Diokno said that he has prepared a briefer about reenacted budgets, copies of which have been submitted to Department of Finance (DOF) Secretary Carlos Dominguez III and Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea.
He has not yet given President Rodrigo R. Duterte a copy of the said briefer but added that “maybe” he will give him one eventually.
Under the said briefer, Diokno said “a reenacted budget is a mechanism designed to avoid disruptions in running the affairs of government.”
“It is resorted to when Congress fails to pass the national budget for the ensuing year by the end of December of the current year, that is on the eve of a new fiscal year,” he said.
But Diokno also clarified that while a reenacted budget will not cause it to completely bog down, it “will stall the government’s “Build, Build, Build” program which at the moment is firing on all cylinders.”
“Next year, infrastructure and other capital outlays is huge, amounting to almost PHP1 trillion pesos. But with a reenacted budget, there is real risk that a big chunk of the infrastructure budget will be stalled, exacerbated by the election ban on new construction,” he said.
