The Senate approved on third and final reading Tuesday, December 15, the House bills that would extend the availability of funds under the 2020 national budget and the "Bayanihan to Recover as One" Act.
A day after its passage in the House of Representatives, Senator Sonny Angara sponsored in the Upper Chamber's plenary House Bill No. 6656, which calls for the extension of the validity of the 2020 General Appropriations Act to December 31, 2021; and House Bill No. 8063, which proposes the extension of the validity of Bayanihan 2 funds to June 30, 2021.
President Duterte yesterday certified the bills as urgent.
Angara, chairman of the Senate finance committee, said the bills would authorize the government to continue disbursing a total of P148 billion from the two appropriation laws.
Citing Department of Budget and Management (DBM) data as of November 30, Angara said some P110 billion from the appropriations in the 2020 GAA has yet to be released.
This included a P60.7-billion unused budget for the Department of Education's programs.
The DBM also reported that P38 billion of the P165.5-billion appropriations under Bayanihan 2 has not yet been released.
These unspent funds were supposed to return to the National Treasury when the year ends should Congress fail to extend the validity of the two laws.
"Allowing these appropriations to lapse amid a pandemic and a recession would have no small impact. If the availability and validity of the appropriations are not extended, vital projects, programs and services of the government would be hampered," Angara pointed out.
"Without this extension, some of the key COVID-19 interventions that Congress, that we here in the Senate, envisioned under Bayanihan 2 will also be affected," he added, noting the P10-billion funding for the purchase of vaccines, among other COVID-19 response programs.
Angara said the extended spending would also help in the recovery of the economy.
Before its third reading approval, the Senate also included an amendment clarifying that despite the extension of the validity of the Bayanihan 2 law to next year, President Duterte's authority to realign and reallocate funds from the national budget for COVID-19 response will last only until December 19.
During the interpellations, Sen. Panfilo Lacson raised the possibility of reverting to an obligations-based budgeting system, or continuing appropriation since government agencies "almost consistently cannot deliver anyway" in spending their allocations within a fiscal year.
In 2019, the Duterte administration adopted a cash-based budget system for the "faster implementation of government programs by ensuring that funding requirements for priority programs and projects are sufficient, maximized by agencies, and, even more importantly, delivered on time."
Since the adoption of cash-based budgeting, however, Congress continued to extend the validity of the annual budgets.
Angara explained that aside from the "usual" problems in the obligation and disbursement of funds, "this year was a little unusual because...we had COVID-19 which paralyzed the whole country."
He said, though, that data from executive department showed that departments have "improved" in implementing the cash-based budgeting system.
Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon also proposed an amendment to both bills to include provisions that would prohibit agencies from outsourcing the services of the Philippine International Trading Corporation (PITC).
To recall, senators earlier lamented the P33 billion worth of unused government funds for various purchases that have been "parked" with the PITC for years.
The chamber also accepted Drilon's proposed provision stating that any balances that remain unspent until extended validity of the two laws shall revert to the surplus of unappropriated funds.
By extending the validity of the 2020 GAA and Bayanihan 2, Angara also said they still expect government agencies to "act with speed and with efficiency" in fulfilling their mandates under the appropriation laws.