Lacson: House agreed to recall their version of 2019 budget

Senator Panfilo Lacson on Monday said the House of Representatives will withdraw its version of the proposed 2019 budget, as relayed to him by Representative Ronnie Zamora.

Lacson said with the withdrawal of the House version which contains post-bicam realignments, the latter will submit the version earlier ratified by Congress.

“Yesterday I received a call from Rep. Zamora. He said he was commissioned by the House to negotiate with the Senate counterpart. Sabi ko there is no way except for House to recall your version of the enrolled bill,” he told reporters after the groundbreaking ceremony for the new Senate building.

“Yesterday he gave me a call na meron nang permiso o approval ang House leadership na ire-recall nila today their version of the enrolled bill. From there we will move forward,” he added.

He said the suggestion of the Senate is after the recall of the House version, the Senate and House will submit to Malacañang the version they earlier ratified and will let President Rodrigo Duterte veto the lump sum amount.

The Senate and House will then request for a special session to discuss where they will put the lump sums and pass a supplemental budget for it.

“It’s up the President to veto because unconstitutional ang lump sum. So 'pag na-veto 'yan, we go back and discuss among ourselves saan dadalhin ang vetoed amount na lump sum. And depending on how fast we can reconcile kung saan dadalhin ang lump sum appropriations na ive-veto ng Presidente, we can request the President to call for a special session even for one day and via a joint resolution mag-pass kami ng supplemental budget to discuss or include the vetoed lump sum appropriations,” he said.

GMA News Online has contacted Zamora for comment but has yet to receive a reply.

Lacson said he is willing to have a compromise and let congressmen have some pork.

“Ako I’m willing to close one eye to the reality na talagang 'di papayag ang mga congressmen na walang pork. But it is not to a point na sobra-sobra ang iba to the disadvantage of their own colleagues, all 62 of them, na tinanggalan nila,” he said.

The senator said he already talked to Senate President Vicente Sotto III about the matter and the latter agreed to it.

Sotto confirmed Lacson’s statement.

“Senator Lacson practically asked for my concurrence. I said yes, talk to them. Alam naman ni Sen. Lacson kung ano ‘yung stand ng Senado e—that is precisely to remove what was not agreed upon, remove from the budget what was not ratified,” he said.

He said he will sign the budget bill once the House recalls its realignments made after the ratification.

“If it submitted to us as ratified we'll immediately sign it and consider it an enrolled bill and send it to the President for signature,” he said.

“Kapag na-veto that (lump sum amount) remains in the budget, it does not mean that it will be removed. When it remains in the budget what will happen is we may pass a supplemental budget appropriating that vetoed part of the budget,” Sotto added. —KG, GMA News