{"id":193698,"date":"2018-12-12T05:44:54","date_gmt":"2018-12-12T10:44:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=193698"},"modified":"2018-12-12T05:44:54","modified_gmt":"2018-12-12T10:44:54","slug":"senators-see-passage-of-2019-budget-in-january","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/12\/12\/senators-see-passage-of-2019-budget-in-january\/","title":{"rendered":"Senators see passage of 2019 budget in January"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
FILE: The Human Rights Watch on Tuesday, May 8, belied the claim of Senate Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III that the international human rights group were silent on the incidents of rape cases in India. (Photo<\/a>: Senate of the Philippines\/Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA<\/strong>\u00a0— Senate leaders on Wednesday said the proposed 2019 national budget could not be passed within the year even if President Rodrigo Duterte calls for special sessions.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven if we are called to a special session next week, we don\u2019t have enough time for amendments and more so for a bicam,\u201d Senate President Vicente Sotto III said in a text message to reporters.<\/p>\n

Congress will adjourn for its December break this week and will resume sessions on January 14.<\/p>\n

At this point, it\u2019s really January, with or without a special session,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon said that even if a special session is held, it would still be the \u201ccall of the Senate whether or not the budget is passed in December.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe consensus in the Senate, both majority and minority, is not to rush the budget. The delay is the fault of the House,\u201d Drilon said in another text message.<\/p>\n

The Senate leaders were reacting to Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno\u2019s statement that he would ask President Duterte to call a special session next week to give Congress time for the budget\u2019s approval.<\/p>\n

Economic managers have warned that a re-enacted budget for next year may cause delays in infrastructure projects, job losses, and higher poverty incidence.<\/p>\n

Senate Majority Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri earlier said it would be \u201cphysically impossible\u201d for the Senate to pass the budget on second and third reading on time unless the President calls for a special session.<\/p>\n

He said this is due to the joint session to extend martial law in Mindanao that would result in the loss of a day\u2019s worth of deliberations.<\/p>\n

\u201cPero di namin kasalanan ito, dahil nagkaroon ng<\/em>\u00a0martial law extension.\u00a0Kung wala, tapos na sana kami<\/em>\u00a0tomorrow (Wednesday), then plano\u00a0namin<\/em>\u00a0second and third reading on Thursday \u201c(This is not our fault, but if not for martial law extension, we would have been finished by Wednesday and have the second and third reading on Thursday),\u201d Zubiri said in an interview Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Acknowledging the impacts of a re-enacted budget, Zubiri has floated the idea of introducing a special provision to amend the Omnibus Election Code to exempt the 2019 capital outlay projects from the election ban in order to ensure that projects under the \u201cBuild, Build, Build\u201d program would not be affected.<\/p>\n

Drilon said that he is \u201camenable\u201d to the idea and assured that “the opposition will cooperate.”<\/p>\n

\u201cI haven’t reviewed the law. But if it requires legislation, yes, it can be done,\u201d Drilon said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u00a0— Senate leaders on Wednesday said the proposed 2019 national budget could not be passed within the year even if …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":161715,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-193698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-ph","mauthors-jose-cielito-reganit","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193698\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/161715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}