Cavite Rep. Joseph Emilio Abaya, House appropriations committee chairman, told The STAR they could live with the vetoed provisions.

“Anyway, they are only minor and will not affect the implementation of the spending program,” he said.

Abaya said some provisions were “directly vetoed,” meaning they were deleted from the national budget, while others were subject of a “conditional veto” and their implementation would depend on certain conditions.

“I intend to sit down with Budget Secretary Butch Abad soon to discuss the provisions subjected to a conditional veto so we could explore a common ground,” he said.

Abaya said Abad cited the rejected provision requiring consultation with lawmakers on budget implementation.

“We can certainly find an acceptable mechanism for efficient and transparent implementation,” he said.

The Senate-sponsored section limiting government borrowings to 55 percent of gross domestic product (the value of products and services produced in the country in a given year) would be impossible to implement since loans are now equivalent to about 57 percent of GDP, Abaya said.

Other vetoed provisions are:

• The use of savings from the P22-billion conditional cash transfer for education and health;

• The grant of preference to insurgency-infested communities in the cash transfer program;

• Budgetary support to the Development Academy of the Philippines;

• Financial assistance to a certain Partido Development Administration in the Bicol region; and

• Benefits for National Power Corp. personnel separated from the service as a result of the firm’s dissolution.

Aquino apparently did not veto the few fund realignments made by Congress, including an additional P590 million for the House and about P400 million for the Senate, P200 million in pork barrel funds for Vice President Jejomar Binay and provisions for the hiring of an additional 5,000 public school teachers.

Abaya said this was the first time that the national budget was signed during the year that Congress approved it.

Aquino, Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. and other leaders of Congress did not want the nation to run on a reenacted budget on Jan. 1 because “a reenacted budget does not promote good governance,” he added.

During former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s nine years in office, the budget was either recycled for the entire year or Congress approved it late.

‘Congress emasculated’

House Minority Leader Edcel Lagman believes Aquino has emasculated the power of Congress to enact the national budget.

In a statement, Lagman said the 2011 General Appropriations Act (GAA) was “a subservient copycat of the President’s National Expenditure Program.”

“This completed the emasculation of the independent congressional power to enact the annual appropriations,” he said.

Lagman said the Office of the President virtually appropriated the national budget through a rubber stamp majority in the Congress.

“For the first time in Philippine legislative history after martial law, Malacañang has effectively transformed Congress into a colossal subservient and faithful photocopying machine — reproducing the NEP in the General Appropriations Bill (GAB) almost in the entirety of the President’s proposal, with minimal realignments but with an exact total of P1.645 trillion as reflected in the President’s original submission,” he said.

Malacañang has “a categorical and persistent instruction to leave the National Expenditure Program untouched and undiminished, effectively subverting the power of Congress, particularly the House, over the public purse” as enshrined and mandated in the Constitution, Lagman said.

A total of P750 million was slashed from the school building program, which is already inadequate to respond to the huge classroom backlog.

This amount was realigned to 5,000 additional teacher positions which should have been funded from the CCT since education is an allied program.

Deles: Budget to fuel reforms

Presidential adviser on the peace process Teresita Quintos-Deles believes the 2011 national budget will fuel Aquino’s reforms and promote the administration’s peace agenda.

“Part of the budget will be used to implement PAMANA (Payapa at Masaganang Pamayanan), which is the government’s flagship program to help empower internally displaced persons (IDPs) and other families living in conflict-affected areas in Mindanao,” she said.

Deles said the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process was allocated P235 million for peace negotiations and parallel efforts like humanitarian, rehabilitation and development programs in next year’s national budget.

PAMANA will engage all government agencies, as well as civil society groups, in promoting community resilience to conflict and strengthening the people’s capacity to address issues of conflict and peace, she added.

Joker criticizes Aquino’s vetoes

Sen. Joker Arroyo criticized Aquino yesterday for vetoing the debt cap on the P1.645-trillion budget for next year.

“Presidents Noynoy and GMA are no different when it comes to borrowing money,” he said. “They think alike.”

Arroyo said Aquino and former president Arroyo vetoed exactly the same limitations imposed by the 14th Congress and the present 15th Congress.

“Both presidents do not want to limit their borrowing power,” he said.

“What is wrong with that? The provision does not tie the hands of the President to borrow. All he has to do is to ask Congress to increase the 55 percent of GDP to say, 60 percent of GDP.”

Arroyo said Aquino could have used his undue advantage at the House of Representatives and the Senate if he wanted an increase in the debt cap.

“After all, President Aquino has a lopsided 80 percent control of both Houses of Congress, and he can always get what he wants. Even the 2011 Noynoy budget is a plagiarism of the GMA 2010 budget,” he said.

Jose Rodel Clapano/Christina Mendez, Philippine Star