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Manila Bulletin devider Philippines devider National devider Office of the President's P10.7 billion 2024 proposed budget hurdles Senate panel

Office of the President's P10.7 billion 2024 proposed budget hurdles Senate panel

Published Oct 11, 2023 07:36 am

In less than 30 minutes, a Senate finance subcommittee has approved the Office of the President’s (OP) proposed P10.7 billion budget for 2024.

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Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin leads officials of the executive department in presenting the Office of the President's P10.7-billion proposed 2024 budget before the Finance Subcommittee A on Wednesday, October 11, 2023. (Senate PRIB photo)

OP's proposed budget which is higher by P1.6 billion from the 2023 General Appropriations Act (GAA) breezed through the the hearing chaired by Sen. Sonny Angara and has been endorsed to the plenary.

"There are no colleagues, that means I think they have a vote of confidence in your budget, so we will favorably endorse your budget for plenary consideration," Agara said.

In his statement, Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin said that they are asking for a "modest increase", but at a rate that is within the norm of previous fiscal years.

“The lifting of the pandemic restrictions provides an avenue for the President to conduct in-person affairs of the state. There are more meetings being now conducted, more presidential public engagements being held,” Bersamin said.

Angara said that they just asked for a few hundred million in terms of their Maintenance and Other Operating Expenses (MOOE) and that it will stand as long as there are no proposed amendments.

No questions were raised regarding the confidential and intelligence funds of the OP worth P4.56 billion based on the National Expenditure Program (NEP) of the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) which is almost half of the proposed budget.


Reduce CIF

In relation to this, Senate Minority Leader Aquilino "Koko" Pimentel III said that they also have to reduce the confidential and intelligence funds of the OP as it is a civilian agency that is not and should not be engaged in intelligence gathering considering the workload of the OP.

"If the OP is truly busy then its manpower/personnel shouldn’t have time anymore for surveillance work and intel gathering," he said.

"Leave that to the specialists in the field of intelligence. Unless these people in the OP have too much time on their hands," he added.

On the other hand, Angara said that they will be scrutinizing the reports of the OP with regard to the spending of its CIF. He said that the fact that it has details brings comfort to a certain degree that it was actually spent on something.

Asked if it would be easier to approve the CIF of the OP than the Office of the Vice President (OVP), Angara pointed out that the difference is that the OP already had this sort of budget before which did not increase as well unlike the OVP.

"I think that’s the reason why parang may (there's like a) debate kung bakit ngayon meron, pero dati wala (now there is, before there was none). I think yan ang pinagmulan nyan (I think that's where they're coming from). And of course, siyempre may mga (there are also) political intramurals na rin yan (in that issue)," he said.

"I think it’s a continuing dialogue kasi eventually we’ll have to make a decision in the period of amendments on the respective agencies -- sa CIF," he added.

Related Tags

Office of the President Senate Minority Leader Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III Senator Sonny Angara Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin
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