Chiz: Senate Version of Savings Will Comply with SC Ruling on PDAF, DAP

The Senate version of the 2015 national budget will define savings in full compliance with the Supreme Court decision on the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) and the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP), according to Senator Chiz Escudero, chairman of the Senate finance committee.

This after Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago on Monday delivered a privilege speech against the definition of savings in the budget as proposed by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) through the National Expenditure Program (NEP).

“The committee accepted all of the good senator’s points and took note of her concerns. However, the Senate version is never going to adopt the version of the NEP as regard to their definition of savings. I believe Senator Santiago based her speech on the NEP version, not the one the Senate has amended,” Escudero said.

Escudero said the Senate version has already amended major points raised by Senator Santiago, especially the definition of savings totally different from the House version.

“Ang savings sa House version, any program appropriated pa lang savings na. Program o project na sinimulan pero ayaw nang tapusin, savings na,” he said.

“Sa Senate amendment, number one, you cannot declare any fund as savings hanggang hindi pa nare-release ang fund. Binigay na namin sa iyo ang pampagawa ng kalye, hindi mo na kayang gawin, dun na savings yun. We do not consider impoundment as savings,” Escudero explained.

He said the Senate also provided a mechanism that will only allow discontinuance or non-commencement of a project through no fault or negligence on the part of the implementing agency.

The senator said the finance panel is fine tuning its version of the 2015 spending plan in compliance with the court ruling. “We simply refer back to the SC decision which I believe our version is compliant.”

Escudero said they will include in the 2015 General Appropriations Act (GAA) reportorial requirements from the Commission on Audit (COA), the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) and Congress on itemized listing of utilization of funds every fiscal year end, as they did in 2014, and added a feature that will include penalty provision on failure to report.

“We are currently drafting a reasonable penal provision that shall punish accountable officers or employees with imprisonment of one year and perpetual disqualification from public office without prejudice to the other acts or omissions already punishable by law,” he said.

Senate of the Philippines

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