tr Tuescay, august 2IJ,Z1)L9
House targets'zeioveto' ' a't
ofproposea 2020budget
Bx fovre Menrr,N. Drr.n Cnuz Y,Ejoveemarie
HE leadership of the House of
Representatives has vowed to
I plss the proposed budget of PAJ
trillion for 2020 without delays to give
'!he senate eRough time to deiiberite the
General Apptopriations Act (GAA).
The lower charnber reiterated this
commitment as the Executive branch,
through the Department of Budget and
Management (DBM), is expected to
transmit the 2020 National Expendi.
ture Program (NEP) fornextyearto the
House of Representatives on Tuesday.
"Our target is to immediately
pass the national budget without
delays.. Our target is efficiency,
quality and'yet faster," said House
Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano.
Majorit,y Leader Martin Romual-
dez said the timely passage of the
!national budget and other priority
lmeasures will further propel - the
i?ountry's economic growih.
, Romualdez said the lower cham-
ber is "determinsd" to closely coor-
dinate with the Senate and the Ex-
..ecutive branch to achieve zero veto
in the l8th Congress, especially on
:the 2020 national
budget.
He saidtargetingzeroveto does not
intend to withhold the prerogative of
the President on the legislative prgcess,
o Ed,itor: Vittorio V Vitug
.
but to pror4ote better coordination be-
tween both chambers andbetween the
Legislative and Executive branches.
"The numbers now are good. All
poverty indicators are at all-time
low. We just need to stay the course
and make sure that all the programs
ahd policies are in place for the next
phase of the war against poverty,'
added Romualdez.
The total proposed national budget
for 2020 is 9.1 percent higher, or P343
billion more than the proposedP g.T ST-
trillion national budget for 2019. The
P4.1-trillion cash-based budget for
2020 is equivalent to 19.4 percent of
the country's GDP, which amounts to
P21,.77 trillion.
flouse Committee on Appropria-
tions Chairman Isidro Ungab said the
lower chamber is targeting to pass the
GeneralAppropriations Bill on October
4 before the congressional recess.
" The [appropriation] committee
will meet before the Development
Budget Coordination Committee
\ pAG€ -AqN
[DBCC] briefings. Most likely, we will
be adopting the same rules used by the
committee in the previous congresses.
Strict adherence to the rules will ensure
order and smooth deliberations at the
committee level," said Ungab.
Per the committee's sched;rle, the bud-
get hearings will kick off on Thursday,
August 22 with a briefing of the DBCC.
Deliberations onthe 2020 NEPwillbehetd
until September 9. The panel is expected
to approve the report on September 11. t
The proposed GAA is expected to be
approved on third and final reading on
October 4. Then the lower chamber will
transmit the national budget to the Sen-
ate for its own deliberation on October 8.
Congress is eyeing to submit the 2020
national budget to President Duterte on
December 20.
Suggestions
AKO Bicol Rep. Alfredo Garbin said the.
lower chamb'er should speed up the bud-
get process to avoid a reenacted budget
while making sure the proper scrutiny
and evaluation are still done.
"Here in the House, we essentiallyhave
less than six weeks to work on the 2OZO
budget," said Garbin.
For transparency, he said all the budget
hearings should be live streamed and open
to full news media coverage.
"These budget hearings should afso
. run parallelwith the hearings of priority
legislation sent to the other committdes.
Maybe while we tackle the bills in the
mornings, we work on the budgetfrom
after lunch until past midnight if neces-
sary," he said.