The late DMW Secretary Susan "Toots" Ople
House Speaker Martin Romualdez had earlier vowed that congressmen will pass the proposed P5.768-trillion National Expenditure Program (NEP) or national budget for 2024 in just five weeks.
Four of these weeks will be used by the House Committee on Appropriations to scrutinize the NEP by going through each of the departments' individual budgets, while the fifth week will be used to approve the eventual General Appropriations Bill (GAB) on third and final reading in plenary.
Week two of the budget process is already in the books. Before information overload takes over, here are the most intriguing angles from the week that was:
1. Is there still a point to waiting for rice to drop to P20 per kilo?
This question begs to be answered after Department of Agriculture (DA) Undersecretary Leocadio Sebastian admitted to congressmen on Aug. 22 that it was not part of the agency plans to reduce the retail price of rice down to P20 per kilo up until 2028.
That year is the last in the Palace term of President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr., who is also the agriculture chief.
Lowering the price of the staple grain to P20 per kilo was a campaign promise of Marcos in 2022. Independent minority congressman Albay 2nd district Rep. Edcel Lagman went as far to claim that the promise had won Marcos the presidency.
But as it is, Sebastian--the rice industry expert at the DA--couldn't even provide solons with a target price reduction for rice by 2028, or any year for that matter.
Rice prices are currently no cheaper than P50 per kilo.
2. Party-list solon happily takes place as sole Teves in the House
TGP Party-list Rep. Jose "Bong" Teves Jr. declared on Aug. 23 during the budget hearing of the Department of Justice (DOJ) that he was the "good" Teves in the House of Representatives.
What's indisputable, however, is that he's now the only Teves in the lower chamber following the expulsion of controversial Negros Oriental 3rd district Rep Arnolfo Teves Jr. six days earlier.
The Visayan had been tagged as the mastermind in the March 4 assassination of Negros Oriental Governor Roel Degamo.
The TGP solon had been vocal about his discomfort of sharing the same surname as the AWOL (absent without official leave) Teves, as it has caused casual observers to confuse him with the latter.
"As an innocent person, yours truly is not involved in the killing of Governor Degamo but unfortunately my name is being dragged into the issue, which misleads the public," he earlier said.
"Wala pong kinalaman o koneksyon ang aming pamilya mula sa probinsya ng Catanduanes, Bicol Region sa issue ng pagpaslang kay Governor Degamo ng Negros Oriental (My family from the province of Catanduanes, Bicol Region is neither involved nor connected to the killing of Governor Degamo from Negros Oriental),” he said.
3. Longest and shortest budget hearings (so far) take place in week 2
Week 2 of the budget deliberations was eventful in that it produced both the longest budget hearing and shortest budget hearing, at least so far this year.
The longest took place on Aug. 22, with the budget hearing of the DA. It lasted 11 hours and 15 minutes.
The DA hearing was lengthier than the longest budget hearing held last year. On Sept. 12, 2022, the appropriations panel discussed the budget of the Department of Health (DOH) for 10 hours and two minutes.
The budget hearing of the Department of Migrant Workers (DMW) was the shortest at only 18 minutes. The hearing occurred on Aug. 24, two days after the sudden passing of DMW Secretary Susan "Toots" Ople.
Hardly anyone from the House members asked questions to the DMW panel and instead spent that time giving their tributes to Ople. She was 61 years old.