House power to realign nat’l budget line items cited
TWO lawmakers said that the House of Representatives has the power to realign some line item in the proposed national budget including the confidential and intelligence funds (CIFs).
Davao del Sur Rep. John Tracy Cagas and Misamis Oriental Rep. Christian S. Unabia issued a separate statement defending the decision of the House of Representatives to realign some confidential funds of the agencies in the 2024 national budget.
Among those removed and to be realigned are the confidential funds of the Office of the Vice President and the Department of Education (DepEd), which both headed by Sara Duterte.
According to Cagas, the power to realign is granted by the Constitution.
“The limitation to that power is that the Congress, to use the language of the Constitution, ‘may not increase the appropriations recommended by the President for the operation of the government as specified in the budget’,” he said.
He added that such authority is also delimited by the President’s veto power.
Cagas pointed out that the House of Representatives and the Senate have been exercising their power of appropriation and realignment every year that they pass the national budget.
In making these budgetary adjustments, Cagas said the House was guided not only by its constitutional power of appropriation and realignment but by the vigorous clamor from the concerned agencies and the affected sectors, including fishermen and local officials, for more funding support for the protection of the country’s interests, security, sovereignty, and territorial integrity.
Besides, he said the agencies, including the OVP, have historically not been receiving CIFs “because they are not concerned with national security.”
For his part, Unabia said the realignment of some P1.23 billion in confidential funds of some civilian government agencies in the 2024 national budget is a constitutional exercise of Congress’s power of the purse, and it has responsibly done so when it redistributed them to national security agencies.
Unabia said the country’s precarious position in the West Philippine Sea (WPS) justifies the realignment of the controversial confidential funds.
