SENATOR Panfilo Lacson, following consultations with Palace officials looking for funds to bankroll P20-billion Covid vaccines, suggested tapping “multimillon” congressional insertions in the national budget.
“Why not use the humongous congressional insertions tagged by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) as ‘For Later Release’ (FLR) to meet the P20-billion requirement for Covid vaccines for this year?” Lacson said in an interview with DWIZ at the weekend, following Thursday’s meeting between him and Senate President Vicente Sotto III, and the “three czars” of the government’s Covid-19 response program.
Lacson confirmed he “suggested that the P20 billion can be sourced from the insertions made by lawmakers marked ‘FLR’ because the implementing agencies concerned were not consulted on the insertions and thus could not implement them,” he told DWIZ on Saturday.
The senator recalled that during his interpellation of the Department of Public Works and Highways’ (DPWH) 2021 budget last year, some “favored” districts got huge outlays in the General Appropriations Bill—one got P15.351 billion, while another got P10.299 billion. Another got P7.924 billion, while still another got P7.559 billion.
An avowed critic of the “pork barrel” setup, Lacson added the “huge unused appropriations” of several executive agencies like the Department of Education, Department of Transportation and DPWH—which has a history of low utilization and a poor disbursement record—can also be tapped for the purpose.
On the other hand, there is a huge amount of unused appropriations that can be realigned,” he said, noting that “under the Constitution, the President can also realign funds in the Executive department; the Chief Justice can realign funds in the judiciary; and the Senate President and House Speaker can realign funds in the legislative branch. If for example, there are unused funds in the DepEd, DoTr, and DPWH, it will be relatively easy to source the P20 billion.”
The Senator recalled that he and Senate President Vicente Sotto III suggested that the three “czars”—Secretaries Carlito Galvez for vaccines, Vince Dizon for testing and Benjamin Magalong for contact tracing—initiate talks with Budget Secretary Wendel Avisado to determine which parts the 2021 budget can be realigned for the vaccination program.
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