Senator Panfilo “Ping” Lacson said the government can make use of the humongous congressional insertions the Department of Budget and Management has tagged as “For Later Release” to meet the P20-billion requirement for the procurement of coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccines for this year.
Lacson raised this possibility following a meeting between him and Senate President Vicente Sotto III, and the "three czars" of the government's COVID response program last Thursday.
According to Lacson, the COVID response czars - vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr., testing czar Vivencio Dizon, and contact tracing czar Benjamin Magalong had said the government needs P90-billion for vaccines in 2022, and P20-billion for this year.
"I 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,” Lacson said in an interview on Radio DWIZ on Saturday, May 8.
Lacson, during his interpellation of the Department of Public Works and Highway’s (DPWH) 2021 budget last year, criticized how some "favored" districts got vast appropriations under the General Appropriations Bill, with one getting P15.351-billion, while another got P10.299-billion. Some districts also got P7.924-billion, while still another got P7.559-billion.
Lacson, who has been a critic of the pork barrel system, also said there are unused appropriations of several executive agencies like the Department of Education (DepEd), Department of Transportation (DOTr) and DPWH which can be tapped for this purpose as well.
The senator also added there is a huge amount of unused appropriations that can be realigned. Under the Constitution, he said the President can 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," he pointed out.
According to Lacson, he and Sotto suggested to the three czars to initiate talks with Budget Secretary Wendel Avisado to determine which appropriations in the 2021 budget can be realigned for the vaccination program.
“It is best they talk to Sec. Avisado so he can check which appropriations can be realigned for the vaccination program,” he said.
“That way, we need not include the amount in the (proposed) Bayanihan 3 measure," he pointed out.
To address this, Lacson said they discussed that the P90 billion needed for next year’s vaccine procurement budget be included in the regular budget of the Department of Health (DOH) instead of putting it under the Unprogrammed Fund to ensure its availability, especially under a cash-based budgeting system.
Lacson also said he and Sotto are open to having more regular informal meetings with the three czars to address the issues in the government’s COVID response efforts.
He said they can expand the meeting if other senators want to join them.