House Deputy Speaker Lito Atienza on Monday, Sept. 13 threatened to block the approval of the budget of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) after he was unable to ask questions during the Lower House’s briefings on the proposed P5.024-trillion national budget for 2022.

Atienza criticized House Committee on Appropriations Vice Chairman and Aklan Rep. Teodorico Haresco, whom he said prevented him from fully asking important questions to DENR, specifically on the wrong direction the agency is taking with regards to its budget.

“We would have wanted to fully support the DENR’s request for a bigger budget for 2022, however, because of the manner in which the committee cut short our interpellation, most of our relevant questions were not asked at all,” Atienza said in a statement.

According to Atienza, he would have asked the DENR why the Laguna de Bay is still filled with fish pens and fish cages despite President Duterte’s pronouncement in his first State of the Nation Address (SONA) that he would clear it of all obstruction.

The lawmaker also said he wanted DENR to respond why it spent hundreds of millions on the white sand dolomite beach at Manila Bay when it has nothing to do with cleaning up the area.

“This negates any effort to clean the Bay, and is a clear waste of money,” he pointed out.

“Among their top 10 priority programs is the rehabilitation of Manila Bay, for which they are asking P1.6 billion. Government need not spend anything if they are able to force the two water concessionaires—Maynilad and Manila Water—to fulfill their obligations as stipulated in their service agreement to provide wastewater treatment facilities to clean the water coming from millions of households in Metro Manila which flow directly into the Bay?” Atienza also said.

According to Atienza, the small water treatment plants that are now in the Bay area is not sufficient to clean up the waters of Manila Bay.

“It will only be clean when the sewer lines of Metro Manila are made to run correctly through a sewage network built by these two companies. We have been fining them since 2009 for their non-compliance but until now, patay malisya sila!

“Meanwhile, they keep collecting from consumers a so-called environmental fee or sewerage fee since 1997 for a service which they have not been rendering!”

But since he was not allowed by the panel’s chairman to pursue these questions, Atienza said he will raise the matter during the plenary deliberations.

“This forces me to withdraw my proposal to increase their budget since they have not answered my questions regarding the proper utilization of such budget. Kaya magkita na lang tayo sa Plenary (let’s see each other at the plenary),” he said.

“If they cannot give us satisfactory answers, then instead of supporting their request for additional budget, we may end up asking for a suspension of their budget!” Atienza stressed.