Rep. Salceda denies House's work on 2020 budget was ‘sloppy’

Albay Representative Joey Salceda on Monday denied Senator Panfilo Lacson's claim that the House of Representatives did a "sloppy" job on the proposed P4.1-trillion national budget for 2020.

Salceda insisted that the House's deliberations on the 2020 General Appropriations Bill had been "systematic."

Furthermore, they were able to able to approve the Department of Budget and Management's National Executive Program (NEP) on third and final reading just 30 days after it was submitted to Congress for scrutiny.

"Is 30 days equivalent to sloppy work? I don't think so. I think we did a great job, the House did a great job under [Appropriations Chair Isidro] Ungab," he said.

In a Saturday tweet, Senator Panfilo Lacson criticized the House's budget bill, which included a P15-million project "annoyingly described" as "Requesting for the improvement of a road."

"It’s interesting to find out how they can implement a request," Lacson said.

The P15-million project was a questionable item Lacson had found in the House-approved budget bill, which he said was indicative of "sloppy work" as it appeared that the bill was a mere "cut and paste" job from the NEP that the executive submitted to the House.

Opposition's failure

Meanwhile, Salceda said that if the House's budget bill was at all sloppy, this due to the failure of opposition lawmakers to call them out on it.

"It's probably the opposition that did a sloppy work. Bakit hindi nila kami ni-correct?" he argued.

ACT Teachers party-list Representative France Castro, a member of the progressive Makabayan Bloc, bristled at Salceda's attempt to place responsibility on the opposition.

She said the Makabayan Bloc was able to expose the big budget cuts for basic social services such as in the education, health and housing sector despite the short and "untransparent" deliberations of the House leadership on the 2020 budget.

"Hindi ang paglalantad ng mga tumuligsa sa anti-people 2020 budget ang dapat tukuying 'sloppy work' ng House leadership kundi ang sariling mga kilos at proseso niya," Castro said.

"The administration and the Lower House that it dominates are the ones responsible for the 2020 budget the approval of which they ran through the House last month with as little scrutiny and public proceedings as possible," she added.

On Tuesday, the House formally submitted its approved 2020 GAB to the Senate, insisting that it was free of "pork" allocations despite Lacson's allegations. — DVM, GMA News