{"id":206589,"date":"2019-03-20T22:03:47","date_gmt":"2019-03-21T02:03:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=206589"},"modified":"2019-03-20T22:03:47","modified_gmt":"2019-03-21T02:03:47","slug":"sotto-welcomes-houses-retrieval-of-its-version-of-budget","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/03\/20\/sotto-welcomes-houses-retrieval-of-its-version-of-budget\/","title":{"rendered":"Sotto welcomes House\u2019s retrieval of its version of budget"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
“I welcome the retrieval, I could have sent it back for being unfaithful to what was approved by the bicam and ratified in plenary but I did not as prudence dictates,” Sotto told reporters in a group message. (File Photo:<\/a> Senate of the Philippines\/Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA<\/strong>\u00a0— Senate President Vicente Sotto III on Wednesday welcomed the decision of the House of Representatives to “physically retrieve” its version of the proposed 2019 national budget from the Senate.<\/p>\n

“I welcome the retrieval, I could have sent it back for being unfaithful to what was approved by the bicam and ratified in plenary but I did not as prudence dictates,” Sotto told reporters in a group message.<\/p>\n

“Our Congress is bicameral. It’s very elementary,” Sotto added.<\/p>\n

Sotto earlier maintained the Senate’s position not to accept the House version of the 2019 spending bill, which allegedly contained post-ratification realignments.<\/p>\n

Senator Panfilo Lacson claimed the House leadership realigned some PHP95.1 billion worth of funds in the 2019 budget to favored districts.<\/p>\n

House appropriations committee chair Rolando Andaya Jr. said they dispatched the House Secretary General to the Senate to physically retrieve the budget books in line with Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s instruction to “allow a last-ditch effort to break the impasse.”<\/p>\n

Andaya, however, clarified that the House is not withdrawing or backtracking on its earlier position.<\/p>\n

“We maintain that the House did nothing unconstitutional, illegal, or irregular when we approved and ratified the 2019 GAB (General Appropriations Bill) in plenary session,” Andaya said.<\/p>\n

Andaya noted that the Speaker ordered the formation of a three-man House team that would meet with their Senate counterparts to address contentious issues on the 2019 GAB within five days.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe hope that the contingents from the Senate and the House can agree to a common venue for a formal discussion on the issues and not debate on the merits of their position through the media,\u201d Andaya added.<\/p>\n

Sotto said he will ask Lacson and Senate finance committee chair Loren Legarda to sit with the House leadership on the budget issue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u00a0— Senate President Vicente Sotto III on Wednesday welcomed the decision of the House of Representatives to “physically retrieve” its …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":202808,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1145,16,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-206589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headline","category-news","category-news-ph","mauthors-filane-mikee-cervantes","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206589","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\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206589\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/202808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}