Alleging that Congress is being “remiss” in its duty to safeguard the taxpayers’ money after the House Committee on Appropriations terminated the budget hearing for the P2.3-billion 2023 budget proposal of the Office of the Vice President (OVP) out of courtesy, a member of its Makabayan bloc hit the “practice of servility” that prevent the lawmakers from performing their mandate.
House Deputy Minority Leader and ACT Teachers Party-list Rep. France Castro on Wednesday, Sept. 14, called on her fellow lawmakers to “stop this practice of servility to the president and the vice president.”
“It should perform its mandate of guarding the hard-earned funds of the people,” she said, adding that Congress “is being reduced as a rubber stamp and a doormat of the executive.”
“We need to fulfill our sworn duty to scrutinize the budget because this is one of the main ways to detect abuse and under-utilization of the people's fund, by just letting the OP (Office of the President) and OVP go without nary a question, then Congress is being remiss of this duty and damaging its own name,” Castro furthered.
Her statement came after the House panel ended in under five minutes the deliberations on the OVP’s proposed budget and did not allow for any questions from the Makabayan bloc, the only members of Congress who were supposed to interpellate during the hearing.
Aside from Castro, Gabriela Party-list Rep. Arlene Brosas and Kabataan Party-list Rep. Raoul Manuel were supposed to question Vice President Sara Duterte, who attended the hearing.
READ: In just 5 minutes, House panel terminates budget hearing for OVP
Castro lamented that the OVP’s budget would go to plenary without being scrutinized at the committee level, especially its “unprecedented P500 million confidential funds.”
She even warned that allowing this to remain unquestioned could pose a national security threat “as even the president is not privy on where and how it would be spent.”
“Also aside from the fact that such funds can be used for surveillance and finance a coup against the president because it is a highly secretive type of fund,” the lawmaker said.
Castro also expressed dismay over the “burgeoning of operational funds supposedly for ‘Good Governance Engagements and Social Service Projects’“ because it “endangers civilian supremacy because such projects gives excessive entanglement of the military in civilian functions, civilian government.”
Castro took the opportunity in her statement to question the Capital Outlay itemized in the OVP’s budget proposal because it was only in 2013 and 2023 when this was funded.
Capital outlay refers to the expenditures for the acquisition of assets and their maintenance.
The OVP’s proposed budget for capital outlay for 2023 is set at P32.5 million from zero under the current budget.
“Such questions have to (be)asked. Besides, these funds can be better utilized if they are realigned to the Department of Education (DepEd), Department of Health (DOH), or the Department of Social Work and Development (DSWD),” Castro said.