by Filane Mikee Cervantes/PNA
Senate President Vicente Sotto III on Thursday raised the possibility of holding a special session to pass a supplemental budget for the lump sum appropriations itemized by the House of Representatives in the 2019 national budget.
In a television interview, Sotto said the suggestion was to revert to the ratified version of the 2019 General Appropriations Bill (GAB) and let President Rodrigo Duterte veto the lump sum appropriations.
Sotto said a special session would then be convened for Congress to pass a joint resolution granting a supplemental budget for the vetoed portions of the 2019 budget.
“Yesterday there was a new development. Senator Ping Lacson had a talk with Congressman Ronnie Zamora. They had a long talk and the suggestion was that again, recall the submitted GAB to us and from there we could probably amend or let the President veto that portion,” Sotto said.
“Then we can convene kahit (even for) one day a special session and pass a joint resolution approving a supplemental budget for that particular ilang percent na yun, or 3 percent na portion ng budget (some 3 percent portion of the budget),” Sotto added.
Lacson earlier claimed that some PHP95 billion worth of funds in the 2019 budget were realigned by the House leadership to favor the allies of Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
The realignments were made even after both chambers of Congress ratified the bicameral conference committee report on the 2019 budget.
House appropriations committee chairman Rolando Andaya Jr., meanwhile, warned that the Senate’s stand to go back to lump-sum budgeting rather than adopting the more transparent line-item budgeting for the 2019 GAB would restore the allocations of previous House leaders and their pet districts.
