{"id":271073,"date":"2020-10-07T06:36:57","date_gmt":"2020-10-07T10:36:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=271073"},"modified":"2020-10-07T06:36:57","modified_gmt":"2020-10-07T10:36:57","slug":"senate-has-enough-time-to-finish-budget-deliberations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2020\/10\/07\/senate-has-enough-time-to-finish-budget-deliberations\/","title":{"rendered":"Senate has \u2018enough time\u2019 to finish budget deliberations"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This, after Senate President Vicente Sotto III earlier claimed that the House of Representatives disregarded President Rodrigo Duterte’s order to prioritize the budget since suspending its session would not allow the budget to reach the Senate before it goes on break on Oct. 14. (File photo<\/a>: Senate of the Philippines\/Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 The Senate still has \u201cenough time\u201d to finish budget deliberations after the House approved the proposed 2021 national budget on second reading and suspended its session until Nov. 16, Malaca\u00f1ang said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

This, after Senate President Vicente Sotto III earlier claimed that the House of Representatives disregarded President Rodrigo Duterte’s order to prioritize the budget since suspending its session would not allow the budget to reach the Senate before it goes on break on Oct. 14.<\/p>\n

In a statement, Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque explained that the Senate can already act on the budget without waiting for the Lower Chamber to approve it on third and final reading.<\/p>\n

Roque, a former lawmaker, said the Constitution does not prohibit the Senate from acting on a proposed legislative measure \u201cin anticipation of its receipt of the bill from the House.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are confident that the Senate has enough time to finish its deliberations and there should be no reason for delay. There is plenty of time between now and Nov. 16 for committee deliberations to continue and come November there will be enough time for plenary deliberations in the Senate,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He, meanwhile, reiterated Duterte\u2019s appeal not to delay the passage of the much-needed proposed 2021 budget.<\/p>\n

Squabbles among lawmakers over budget allocations for infrastructure and the speakership row earlier raised concerns over the timely package of the proposed PHP4.5 trillion 2021 budget.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe President\u2019s message is clear: we cannot delay the passage of the national budget,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, the general appropriations bill which contains the proposed budget was approved on second reading in the House of Representatives.<\/p>\n

Roque explained that lawmakers could no longer make any amendments when a proposed law is approved on second reading.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn third and final reading, you can no longer move for amendments. That\u2019s already the final version of the House bill. It\u2019s either you vote for or against the measure and now we\u2019re expecting of course that as soon as it is printed and brought to the floor for the third reading, that all the administration parties, all those supporters of the President will cast a yes vote,\u201d he said in an interview over CNN Philippines.<\/p>\n

The Senate finance committee is currently deliberating on the National Expenditure Program, which deliberations have been simultaneous with the deliberations of the House.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u00a0\u2013 The Senate still has \u201cenough time\u201d to finish budget deliberations after the House approved the proposed 2021 national budget …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":248854,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-271073","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\/271073","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=271073"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271073\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":271074,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271073\/revisions\/271074"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/248854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}