House Minority Leader and Manila 6th District Rep. Benny Abante Jr. on Wednesday reiterated that members of the Minority will be using the plenary debates on the 2020 General Appropriations Bill (GAB) to hammer out a pork-free, waste-free budget that would benefit the country’s 104 million citizens.
On the second day of the marathon House hearings on the 2020 national budget, Abante stressed that the inquiries and questions of the members of the Minority would be consistent with “our responsibility to thoroughly assess and evaluate the details and minutiae of the GAB.”
“We acknowledge that the timely passage of the budget is necessary to avoid delays in the delivery of services.”
“The Minority believes that a proper examination of the budget is just as important as its prompt passage––especially if we want a national budget that is 100% pork-free, 100% waste-free, and 100% beneficial to our constituents,” said Abante.
Abante had earlier stated that the members of the Minority will respect appeals for House members to be professional and disciplined in the course of the budget deliberations, to ask relevant questions, and to keep within their allotted time in order to expedite proceedings.
At the opening of the plenary debates on Tuesday, Abante said that “on behalf of the Minority, let me assure everyone here that we acknowledge that the timely passage of the budget is necessary to avoid delays in the delivery of services to our people, and that we are aware that such delays can adversely affect our economy.”
“Members of the Minority are concerned about disturbing trends in the figures pertaining to our past budgets.”
Abante pointed out, however, that members of the Minority “are concerned about disturbing trends in the figures pertaining to our past budgets, specifically with regard to the seeming incongruence between the funds allocated for government programs, the revenues generated to support these, and the government’s track record in the utilization of the funds allocated to it by Congress.”
“Based on figures from 2016, 2017, and 2018, there appear to be issues with both the revenue being inputted into government, as well as the output, meaning the disbursements released for government programs.”
The legislator said these issues are relevant especially with the government’s record-breaking P4.1 trillion budget.
During the course of the budget deliberations, Abante said members of the Minority will determine: whether government line departments genuinely require the funds allocated for them; the ability of the concerned agencies to generate the revenue to cover the funding requirements of government; and the capacity of the agencies to utilize all the funds allotted to them.