By Vanne Elaine Terrazola Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto urged the government to include part of the estimated P2-trillion fund for the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL) in next year's national budget. Recto made the call on the first day of the briefing of government economic managers on the administration's proposed expenditure program for 2019 before the Senate Committee on Finance on Tuesday. Senator Ralph Recto (JOHN JEROME GANZON / MANILA BULLETIN FILE PHOTO) "It is up to this government to make the first down payment through the 2019 national budget. The cost of the BOL must be included in next year’s General Appropriations Act," he said. In his appeal, Recto lamented that the full cost of the implementation of BOL has yet to be determined despite its signing into law last month. "What we have are estimates and approximations," Recto said. "What we were told were the programs and the projects, but not their price. This bill is a ledger of intentions, without tallying the cost of each," he added. Recto said it is but right to make good the government's promise in ending the long-languishing conflict in the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). "Whatever the amount, we must fund it. A costly peace is better than a cheap war," he said. Recto estimated that the implementation of the BOL will cost P109 billion in the first year, P369 billion in the first three years, and will reach P1.981 trillion for a period of 10 years. The some P2-trillion budget, however, is just a "meteorite" in what Recto called the "fiscal universe." Recto said the amount is a "mere" three percent of the projected cumulative national government budget of P66 trillion from 2019 to 2028. The amount, he added, does not include funds for social services like the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program or 4Ps, and pension for senior citizens. Also not included in his estimate was an annual outlay for the maintenance of airports, wharves, roads, bridges, and irrigation. "Not included are the amounts for innocuously-termed mandates such as 'development programs and projects' and 'normalization, rehabilitation and development' and 'central government assistance -- the nature of which stands unspecified," Recto also noted. Recto warned that the government's "failure" to peg the costs of the BOL may risk the law of "becoming an unfunded mandate." Department of Budget and Management t Secretary Benjamin Diokno earlier said some P100-billion allocation for BOL was not included in the proposed P3.757-trillion 2019 national budget. He said the agency will address it once the BOL is ratified through the plebiscite. "Open government means open budgeting, and open budgeting requires open tabulation of costs. And in this rule, we expect all recipients of taxpayers’ money to comply, without exemption," Recto appealed. "Because ultimately, it is the taxpayer, from Batanes to General Santos City, who will foot this bill," he added.