Senator Panfilo Lacson shrugged off Malacañang's dismissal of his discovery on the "re-appropriations" and lump-sum allocations in the proposed 2021 budget.
Senator Panfilo M. Lacson
(MANILA BULLETIN FILE PHOTO)
On Thursday, Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said there were no unconstitutional items in the P4.506-trillion government spending plan for next year, and that all items have been specified.
"A spokesperson will always defend his principal, right or wrong. That’s his job," Lacson said in a text message.
On Wednesday, Lacson flagged some P469 billion in the P667.3-billion proposed 2021 budget of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) for possible unconstitutionality. He said the amount contained re-appropriations for programs, activities and projects (PAPs) that were already included in this year's expenditures, as well as lump sum allocations.
"At any rate, with DBM Sec. Avisado’s virtual admission of the questionable entries in the 2021 NEP and his commitment to ask DPWH to submit a revised list of PAPs easily makes Sec. Roque’s statement stand on hollow grounds and therefore should not be taken seriously," he said.During the resumption of the Senate Committee of Finance's online hearing with economic and finance managers, Department of Budget and Management (DBM) Secretary Wendel Avisado agreed with Lacson's observations.
He said the DBM will submit to legislators an "errata" to correct and clarify that the proposed allocations were for projects that are set for completion next year.
"'Yon po 'yong errata na gagawin namin para hindi po re-appropriation ang labas, which is, I agree, na hindi naman po pupwede 'yon (That would be the errata that we would come up with so they will not appear as re-appropriations, which, I agree, could not be done)," Avisado said.