House Appropriations Committee chairman Rep. Elizaldy Co on Tuesday, January 9 rejected claims that an additional P12-billion budget of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) would be used to finance Charter change.

Co is referring to Albay Congressman Edcel Lagman’s claim that P12-billion was inserted during the bicameral conference committee level deliberations on the 2024 national budget for this purpose.

According to Co, the P12-billion added to Comelec’s P2-billion budget was made upon the request of the poll body whose proposed P19.4-billion budget in the 2024 National Expenditure Program (NEP) was slashed by P17.4-billion by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) before submission to Congress.

“Comelec Chairman George Garcia personally appealed during the budget hearing in Congress to restore their budget. Congressman (Joseph Steven) Caraps Paduano, who presided over that meeting, attests that such request was approved by the committee and reflected in the minutes,” Co said in a statement.

“Was Congressman Lagman sleeping on the job that he missed it?” the solon asked.

Co also added that only P14-billion and not the entire P19.4-billion originally requested by Comelec was approved.

“The balance of P5.4-billion was included in the unprogrammed funds for future funding,” he said.

“Laking pasasalamat pa nga ng Comelec and Chairman George Garcia to the bicam team for accommodating their request. Maski sila pa ang tanungin nyo (Comelec and Chairman George Garcia are even very grateful to the bicam team for accommodating their request. Even if you ask them),” he pointed out.

He scored Lagman for making it appear that the bicam whimsically added P12-billion to Comelec’s budget to finance Charter Change.

“This is another one of his wild and irresponsible accusations,” Co lamented.

Co dared Lagman to show and prove his claim that the funds in question would be used to push or finance proposed amendments to the 1987 Constitution.

“This is Comelec’s budget. No other agency, not even Congress, can touch or release even one centavo of it. Is Congressman Lagman saying that Comelec commissioners would use those funds for charter change? If he can’t prove it, then he better shut up,” he stressed.

But in a statement, Lagman refuted Co’s remarks and stood by his earlier statement that the Comelec’s budget of P12-billion for “plebiscites, among others” was inserted during the bicam.

“(He) must stop calling me names and becoming personal but must stick to the facts and the truth that P12- billion was inserted by the bicameral conference committee in the 2024 Comelec’s budget for ‘plebiscites,’ among others, related to the charter change agenda,” Lagman said in a statement.

“It is indelible that under page 618 of the 2024 General Appropriations Act (GAA), the initial P2.2-B for the ‘Conduct and supervision of elections, referenda, recall votes and plebiscites’ was increased by P12-billion under the line item ‘Conduct and supervision of elections, referenda, recall votes and plebiscites—P14,229,617,000’,” he said.

Lagman also said Comelec chairman George Garcia, did not request for the P12-billion augmentation for the subject activities, including the plebiscites for Charter change.

“I have asked Chairman Garcia, through a mutual friend, whether he requested this huge increase, and he said no,” he pointed out.

Lagman said what the poll chief requested to be restored was inadequately given back to the Comelec and “what was inserted was for the subject exorbitant augmentation, which he did not request.”

“Chairman Co must be man enough to admit candidly this furtive and malevolent insertion. This P12-B insertion was not in response to the Comelec’s request to restore its budget which was reduced in the submission of the NEP,” he stressed.

“What was given to Comelec was not requested by it in the form of additional appropriation for the charter change agenda,” he pointed out.

“How could I be sleeping on the job when the insertion was made by the bicameral conference committee of which I was not appointed as a member after years of being a conferee as former chair of the appropriations committee?” he further argued.