House seeks Diokno ouster over 2019 budget irregularities
Credit to Author: The Manila Times| Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2018 10:24:28 +0000
THE House of Representatives adopted a resolution on Wednesday calling for the resignation of Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno to quit his post, a day after he was summoned for a “question hour” on the irregularities of the proposed 2019 budget.
Resolution 2365 filed by Minority Leader Danilo Suarez “urged the office of the President to reconsider the appointment of Honorable Benjamin Diokno as Secretary of Department of Budget and Management based on the findings during the question hour.”
“Kung ako siya, magreresign na ako. It takes delicadeza [to do it] (If I were the Budget Secretary, I would resign),” Suarez said in a press briefing.
“During the question hour, the issue on the augmentation in the budget of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) without the DPWH Secretary’s knowledge and consent, remains unresolved,” the resolution read.
Diokno admitted on Tuesday night that the controversial P51.792 billion initially allocated for projects of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) actually amounted to P75 billion, which was part of the “President’s budget.”
During the question hour at the House on Tuesday, Majority Leader Rolando Andaya Jr. grilled Diokno on the controversial amount to which Public Works Secretary Mark Villar allegedly knew nothing about.
“[Sec. Villar] told me he did not know of the P51 billion worth of budget inserted in the Public Works budget…lo and behold, there was an additional P51 billion which no one now claims,” Andaya told Diokno.
According to Diokno, the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) added P75 billion to the DPWH appropriation after it approved some P123.9 billion and another P356.2 billion for the agency’s projects, for a total of P555.2 billion from the proposed P652 billion by the DPWH.
“We want an infrastructure budget [that is higher] and we have fiscal space, so we decided to augment or add to the P480 billion another P75 billion, not P51 billion,” Diokno said.
Diokno maintained that the additional amount could not be called an insertion as it was part of the President’s budget. However, Andaya said that even President Rodrigo Duterte did not have an idea where the amount came from.
“So in this whole tete-a-tete we’re having, it’s clear now that the insertion is not P51 billion but P75 billion. Thank you very much for admitting,” Andaya said.
The almost P52-billion originally earmarked for the projects of the DPWH previously made headlines after it caused a series of delays in the House deliberation of the national budget of P3.757 trillion for 2019.
Andaya told reporters on Wednesday that the House would “most definitely” look for the remaining P24 billion, months after he proposed that the almost P52-billion realigned appropriations from the agency would be “itemized”, and would not serve as lump sum funds for other government. GLEE JALEA
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