Lacson: ‘Final resting place’ for P75B ‘insertion’ pending
Credit to Author: ggaviola| Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2019 05:17:30 +0000
MANILA, Philippines – The Senate has yet to discuss the ‘finalresting place’ for the P75 billion budget cut from the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH).
Senator Panfilo Lacson has this to say on Tuesday, a day after he proposed the deletion of the P75 billion, which was added to the agency’s budget even without its knowledge.
No less than DPWH Secretary Mark Villar admitted that he was not aware of the additional budget until he saw it in the National Expenditure Program (NEP).
Asked in a text message where the budget cut from DPWH would go, Lacson said: “We will have to discuss the final resting place for the 75billion that we have already agreed to delete from the DPWH proposed budget.”
“We will make sure that the monies will be put into good use, just like the 8billion that I deleted from the ARMM (Autonomus Region in Muslim Mindanao) in 2017 which we decided to realign for free tuition even at a time that the law on universal access to quality tertiary education was not yet passed,” he added.
In a separate text message, Lacson said the House of Representatives might protest if the P75billion cut would be scrapped from the 2019 national budget.
“Magkakagulo sila sa HOR pag nawala yun,”’ he said.
“That’s what the new leadership chopped and redistributed among their allies since they suspected that the previous leadership was responsible for the additional P75 billion ‘insertion’ in the NEP,” Lacson said.
The senator earlier claimed that the delay in the transmittal of the 2019 General Appropriations Act to the Senate was due to “unfinished individual insertions” in the House./gsg