Palace: Duterte to exercise veto power over 2019 budget if needed

President Rodrigo Duterte will exercise his veto power if some items in the proposed P3.757-trillion national budget for 2019 failed to comply with the Supreme Court ruling that declared unconstitutional the pork barrel system, Malacañang said Thursday.

Senator Panfilo Lacson earlier urged the President to veto the billions of pesos in discretionary funds allegedly inserted by "incorrigibly insatiable" and lawmakers who are "beyond redemption" during the deliberations on the spending bill.

"We should not preempt the President. (He) knows what he is going to do. The basis for any action of the President is people's interest," presidential spokesperson Salvador Panelo said at a news conference.

"The President is a lawyer. He knows his law. If he thinks that is in violation of the doctrine enunciated by the Supreme Court [on pork barrel], then he will do what is right."

This early, House appropriations committee chairman Rolando Andaya Jr. said they plan to elevate the veto message, if any, to the Supreme Court so that the lawmakers would know the "clear implications of the line items to be vetoed."

Andaya however clarified that he supports Lacson's call for the President to use his line-item veto power to remove all pork barrel insertions in the 2019 national budget.

The SC declared the Priority Development Assistance Fund or pork barrel in 2013 as illegal because it “allowed legislators to wield, in varying gradations, non-oversight, post-enactment authority in vital areas of budget executions," thus violating the principle of separation of powers.

The high court also said the pork barrel system creates a system of budgeting in which items are not “textualized into appropriations bill.” —LBG, GMA News