THE House of Representatives will start deliberating next week on the plenary the proposed 2022 national budget amounting to P5.024 trillion.

House Committee on Appropriations chair and ACT-CIS Representative Eric Go Yap said the debates will begin on September 21.

Yap said in order to expedite and at the same time scrutinize the budget, there will be marathon plenary session in the morning until the final approval.

Congress will have its early break starting September 30 to give way to a week-long filing of certificate of candidacy from October 1 to 8 for the 2022 national and local elections.

According to Yap, the committee did not make any amendments to the 2022 National Expenditure Program of Duterte administration.

“Sa committee wala pong amendments. Depende naman po sa deliberation ng plenary kung magkaka amendments po,” he said.

Yap has assured members of the House of Representatives will be given enough time to question the budget on the floor.

Yap added that the panel will submit a committee report by Monday and will appeal to President Duterte to certify it as urgent so that final approval will be before the end of the month.

House Bill No. 10153 or the 2022 General Appropriations bill was filed last September 7.

Speaker Lord Allan Velasco said the House is all set to carry out its constitutional duty of carefully scrutinizing the P5.024 trillion national budget.

For 2022 the NEP amounts to P5.024 trillion, which is equivalent to 22.8 percent of Gross Domestic Product and is higher by 11.5 percent than this year’s national budget.

The bulk of the budget, amounting to P1.456 trillion or 29.0 percent, will go to Personnel Services expenditures to cover the hiring of healthcare workers and teaching personnel, the implementation of the third tranche of the Salary Standardization Law V, and the requirements of the 2018 Military and Uniformed Personnel pension arrears, among others.

Capital Outlays are pegged at P939.8 billion while Maintenance and Other Operating Expenditures will reach P777.9 billion next year. Debt burden amounts to P541.3 billion, which corners 10.8 percent of the FY 2022 NEP and is lower by 3.4 percent year-on-year. The support to Government-Owned and -Controlled Corporations, composed of National Government subsidies and equity, sums up to P178.0 billion while Tax Expenditures remain the same with this year’s level at P14.5 billion.

The allocation to local government units (LGUs) will amount to P1.116 trillion including the P959 billion National Tax Allotment share of LGUs.

The General Public Services sector is allocated with P862.7 billion (17.2%), the Debt Burden with P541.3 billion (10.8 percent), and the Defense sector with P224.4 billion (4.5 percent).

The top 10 departments with highest allocations are: Department of Education (DepED) P773.6 billion; Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), P686.1 billion; Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG), P250.4 billion; Department of Health and the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (DoH/PhilHealth), P242.0 billion; Department of National Defense (DND), P222.0 billion; Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), P191.4 billion; Department of Transportation (DOTr), P151.3 billion; Department of Agriculture (DA) and National Irrigation Authority (NIA), P103.5 billion, The Judiciary, P45.0 billion, and the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), P44.9 billion.