Deadlock over, 2019 budget sent to Palace
Credit to Author: RALPH VILLANUEVA| Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2019 16:51:30 +0000
PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte would carefully look into the controversy-riddled 2019 budget bill passed by Congress before signing it into law, Malacañang said on Tuesday.
Senate President Vicente Sotto 3rd signed the P3.757 trillion national budget for 2019 “with strong reservations,” finally passing the appropriations act for Duterte’s approval.
In a chance interview, Palace spokesman Salvador Panelo said Duterte would give weight to the reservations of Sotto.
“That’s his judgment call, he will have to review the enrolled bill. If it is consistent with the Constitution, he will sign it,” Panelo added.
The President, according to the spokesman, “always does the right thing” and would study the measure fully.
If the President thinks that the realignments are unconstitutional, Panelo said Duterte has the right to veto such provisions.
“The Senate said [the realignments are] illegal, unconstitutional. The President says he will not sign anything unconstitutional. As far as he is concerned, he will need to evaluate whether the opinion of the Senate is indeed correct. It depends. The President is a lawyer,” he said.
Panelo added that he does not think that Congress put Duterte in an awkward position.
“No, their job is to pass the bill and they have done that. Now the ball is in the hands of the President,” he said.
Sotto signed the enrolled General Appropriations Bill (GAB) after consultations with Senate Majority Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri, Minority Leader Franklin Drilon and Sen. Panfilo Lacson.
In a letter to the President, Sotto clarified that his attestation was limited only to those items approved by the bicameral conference and ratified by both Houses of Congress.
“The President may wish to consider disapproving these unconstitutional realignments, pursuant to his constitutional power to veto particular items in the [GABl,” he said.
Despite his strong reservations on the constitutionality of the House of Representatives’ itemization of P95 billion worth of “pork barrel” appropriations, Drilon cooperated with Sotto in giving approval to the proposed national budget for 2019.
Two weeks ago, Duterte said he would not sign the 2019 national budget if there are provisions that violate constitutional requirements as he warned possible repercussions of a reenacted budget.
Earlier this month, Lacson, who earlier exposed that there were “pork” insertions in the budget, bared that Speaker Gloria Macapagal Arroyo “manipulated” the ratified bicameral report.
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