SENATORS are keen on wrapping up the final version of next year’s P5.268-trillion national budget to avert government operating under a reenacted 2022 budget on January 1, 2023.
“We are planning to sponsor the [new] budget tomorrow, November 8, at 3 p.m.,” Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri said Monday.
Speaking partly in Filipino, the Senate leader explained to reporters, “What we’ll do is, there’ll be a sponsorship speech by Sen. Juan Edgardo Angara as the chairman of the Committee on Finance, and then we will proceed with the plenary debates on the 9th, 10th, 11th.”
Senate President Zubiri said the senators will then suspend session on November 8, “which is tradition every time there’s a budget deliberation, and then, we’ll come to work every 10 o’clock in the morning, until it’s finished, until next week, the 18th.”
He added: “So, that’s our schedule natin. We start the plenary sponsorship on the 8th, on the 9th we start the debates. Wala na po tayong session ‘yan, it’s all going to be budget deliberations, so 10 a.m. to sawa, every day, from November 9 to 11, and then back again [on] 14, 15, 16 hanggang 18.”
The target is to approve the budget on second and third reading on November 21, or November 23 at the latest. As soon as the Senate approves its version of the budget, it will promptly form a bicameral panel tasked to reconcile differing provisions in the Senate- and House-approved versions of the annual money measure.
“And then the week after, bicam, and hopefully, we can pass it and ratify it before the 30th.”
Replying to questions, Zubiri said while the majority and minority have a consensus on the need for fiscal discipline—given the limited revenues and the huge requirements posed by the disaster response and continuing recovery from the pandemic—he still had to validate where Minority Leader Koko Pimentel III sourced his data about lump sums, a target for pruning as lawmakers tweak the money bill to make room for disaster response.
Asked about a P450-million lump sum allotment cited by Pimentel, Zubiri said, “I do not want to comment because I do not know where that lump sum is found.”
He also said earlier that he will consult Angara, as Finance committee chairman, about such lump sums.
Zubiri expressed confidence the Senate-House panels tasked to wrap up a final version of the money measure can do it even by before the end of November.
At the same time, Zubiri confirmed that “under our rules, when session in ongoing, there can be no other committee hearings. That’s why [even the] Commission on Appointments [hearing] is postponed—let me get my calendar—is actually postponed up to November 22, 23, Tuesday and Wednesday.”