House to resume 2019 budget deliberations

The House of Representatives is set to continue its deliberations on the proposed P3.757-trillion national budget for 2019 after establishing “clear lines of communication” with the executive on the heels of a meeting with President Rodrigo Duterte.

The deliberations were suspended for week as lawmakers rejected a cash-based budgeting in which appropriations must be liquidated within the current fiscal year.

House Majority Leader Rolando Andaya said on Wednesday that he and Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo met with the President in Malacañang on Tuesday to discuss the apparent impasse on the proposed 2019 budget.

“We clarified that there is no rejection in the proposal of the Palace. A lot of the hype was most probably due to miscommunication. But now, after the meeting ... with the President last night, I think we’ve established clear lines of communication,” Andaya told reporters in a press conference Wednesday.

“I think I can suggest to the chairman that we can now continue the budget hearings. Clear naman yung instructions ng Presidente,” he said.

The budget deliberations will resume on Thursday.

The House of Representatives has opposed the cash-based budgeting system of the Department of Budget and Management (DBM), as it supposedly reduced the budget proposal for 2019 by about P10 billion compared with this year’s appropriations.

Under a cash-based budgeting system, agencies have only one year with a three-month extension after the fiscal year to settle payments for goods and services delivered.

Lawmakers across party lines pushed for going back to an obligation-based budgeting, with the appropriations valid for up to two years.

Andaya, however, said the House and the Executive have come up with a compromise on this issue.

While a cash-based budgeting system is a “step forward,” its one year implementation is not that favorable in the eyes of lawmakers.

“We have to balance it. Budget should be demand-based not supply-based,” Andaya noted.

He said the House and the Executive agreed to implement a “hybrid” cash-based and obligations-based system for next year.

“Magiging hybrid ito in the sense that there will be some items in the budget that will still operate sa dating sistema natin,” Andaya emphasized.

As a compromise, the appropriations will be valid for one year and six months under hybrid system—instead of one year with a three-month extension.

“Dapat ‘yan during one year as a general rule. But there is also the compromise na inilagay namin na one year and six months. Isa sa mga compromise ‘yan,” Andaya said.

Andaya said that lawmakers are not antagonistic towards the budget.

“We just want to make sure that the budget presented to us and churned out will reflect the promises [of the President],” he said.

Andaya has allayed fears of a reenacted budget for 2019.

“We will avoid having a reenacted budget. Hindi natin papayagan ‘yan. What we are doing now is really to try to understand what DBM has submitted to us,” he said. —VDS, GMA News