Lower House Approves 2017 National Annual Budget

House of Representatives approves the P3.35-trillion national annual budget for 2017.

The approval on Wednesday came two months and a half before the end of the fiscal year.

During the session of the lower chamber of the Congress, a total of 243 lawmakers voted in favor of the budget, while five registered their opposition.

The proposed appropriation is 11.6 percent higher than the current year’s budget of P3.002 trillion.

Davao Rep. Karlo Nograles, appropriations committee chairman, expressed the approval of the budget on third and final reading “puts us one step closer to our quest for a lasting and meaningful change.”

“The P3.35 trillion budget will effectuate the Duterte administration’s reform agenda and ensure its success in the war against drugs, criminality and poverty,” he said.

Nograles said the House will await the approval of the higher chamber, the Senate’s version and its signing into law by Presidente Rodrigo Duterte in December.

Albay Representative Edcel Lagman abstained from voting. He cited his reservations on the “validity” of the approval based on Duterte’s message to Congress for the budget’s immediate enactment.

“No bill passed by either House shall become a law unless it has passed three readings on separate days, and printed copies thereof in its final form had been distributed to its Members three days before its passage, except when the President certifies to the necessity of its immediate enactment to meet a public calamity and emergency,” Lagman said.

“While the distribution of copies of the printed bill in its final form is dispensed with, when there is a valid certification of urgency, there must at least be a showing that the third reading copy is complete with the incorporation of the amendments to the GAB (General Appropriations Bill) by the small committee. No such showing has been made so far on the final version for third reading,” he added.

Next year, the top 10 agencies in terms of budgetary allocations are the following: