House to submit 2021 budget bill to Senate by October 14 —appropriations chairman

The House of Representatives is targeting to submit the General Appropriations bill to the Senate by October 14, House appropriations chairman Eric Yap said Monday.

The bill proposes a P4.5-trillion budget for 2021 to cover expenditures on health, education, infrastructure, social services, among others.

"Bago mag-end yung session namin sa October 16, dapat maipasa na namin. Target namin October 14 maipasa na namin sa Senate yung budget," Yap told GMA News in an interview.

The House was originally planning to finish its deliberations on the proposed 2021 budget by the end of September, but Yap said they still have to address the concerns of lawmakers regarding the budgetary allocations for their respective districts.

"Kailangan namin tignan yung mga reklamo ng ibang mga congressman kasi siyempre mga kasamahan din namin sila so tinitignan ko isa-isa at ginagawan namin ng win-win solution na pwede naming magawa," he said.

Last week, Negros Oriental Representative Arnolfo Teves Jr. and Deputy Speaker Luis Raymund Villafuerte traded barbs over infrastructure funds allocated in legislative districts.

Teves, during the budget briefing of the Department of Public Works and Highways, questioned the supposedly massive allocations for Taguig City and Camarines Sur, and claimed that they amount to P8 billion and P11.8 billion respectively.

Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano represents Taguig-Pateros, while Villafuerte is the representative of the second district of Camarines Sur.

Villafuerte dismissed Teves' claims as a "sinister ploy" hatched by supporters of Marinduque Representative Lord Allan Velasco to derail the House's plan to finish the budget deliberations by the end of the month.

Velasco is expected to take over the speakership from Cayetano under their term-sharing agreement.

Villafuerte also explained in a Dobol B sa News TV interview earlier in the day that only P3.3 billion of the supposed infrastructure funds of Camarines Sur was actually allocated for his district.

The complaints of lawmakers on the infrastructure funds for their districts also reached presidential son and Deputy Speaker Paolo Duterte, but he said he does not want to get involved in such matters.—LDF, GMA News