{"id":194623,"date":"2018-12-19T05:53:40","date_gmt":"2018-12-19T10:53:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=194623"},"modified":"2018-12-19T05:53:40","modified_gmt":"2018-12-19T10:53:40","slug":"no-new-infra-project-can-start-under-reenacted-budget-diokno","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/12\/19\/no-new-infra-project-can-start-under-reenacted-budget-diokno\/","title":{"rendered":"No new infra project can start under reenacted budget: Diokno"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
No new infrastructure project can start under a reenacted budget, Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno said on Wednesday. (PNA File photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA<\/strong>\u00a0— No new infrastructure project can start under a reenacted budget, Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnder a reenacted budget, no new infrastructure projects can start because the capital outlays component of the previous year\u2019s budget cannot be deemed reenacted,\u201d Diokno said in a Palace briefing.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnly the personal services and the maintenance and other operating expenditures are deemed reenacted. Capital outlays, let me repeat, are not deemed reenacted,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

The government is currently faced with the prospects of a reenacted budget at least for the first quarter of 2019.<\/p>\n

Diokno explained that new projects will have to wait until the 2019 General Appropriations Act is passed into law since the same projects cannot be funded and finished twice.<\/p>\n

He, however, assured that large projects that are covered by the Multi-Year Obligational Authority (MYOA), such as the Metro Manila subway and Philippine National Railway long haul, will not be adversely affected.<\/p>\n

The budget chief also said that the internal revenue allotment for local government units and debt service will not be affected as they are automatically appropriated.<\/p>\n

Salary hike delayed<\/strong><\/p>\n

According to Diokno, personnel services, such as salaries, wages, pension and retirement and the like, and the maintenance and other operating expenses are deemed reenacted \u2013 but they will be based on the 2018 level.<\/p>\n

This means that salary adjustments for civilian and military personnel that are programmed for 2019 will have to wait.<\/p>\n

\u201cI repeat: the fourth tranche of the salary standardization for government employees will be deferred until such time (as) the 2019 General Appropriations Act is passed into law,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Diokno also noted that if no new budget is passed in the first quarter, disbursements will be reduced by PHP44 billion.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe estimate that in total, a reenacted budget for the first quarter of 2019 will reduce total disbursements by an estimated 44 billion for one quarter \u2013 if it is delayed by one quarter,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

If no new budget is passed for the entire year, disbursements will be reduced by PHP219.8 billion or PHP220 billion.<\/p>\n

Diokno said a reenacted budget will be \u201cdetrimental to the economic growth and development objectives of the Duterte administration\u201d, especially since it intends to ramp up investments on public infrastructure, poverty alleviation and social services.<\/p>\n

He warned that the momentum of the administration\u2019s infrastructure projects are at risk of slowing down.<\/p>\n

The budget secretary, meanwhile, expressed hope that lawmakers would see the urgency and wisdom in passing the proposed PHP3.757-trillion 2019 national budget at the soonest possible time.<\/p>\n

No special session<\/strong><\/p>\n

Asked why the President did not insist that the Senate hold a special session during the legislative Christmas break to force the passage of the proposed budget, Diokno said that Duterte simply gave in to the senators\u2019 request.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a strong request from the senators, sabi nila pagod na pagod na raw sila. So\u00a0pinagbigyan na lang namin<\/em>\u00a0(They said they were tired. So we deferred to their request). We decided not to call a special session,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Diokno also admitted that in his 32 years of public service, it is only now that he experienced having \u201cproblems\u201d on the passage of the proposed national budget.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe facts speak for itself. We didn\u2019t have problems with the first two budgets of the President. It was actually done before December. About this time, tapos na kami (we were finished),\u201d Diokno said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u00a0— No new infrastructure project can start under a reenacted budget, Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno said on Wednesday. \u201cUnder a …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":154664,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-194623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-ph","mauthors-azer-parrocha","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194623","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=194623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194623\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/154664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}