Escudero confident 2015 budget will be pass as scheduled

Sen. Francis ‘Chiz’ Escudero (Chiz Escudero’s Facebook page)

MANILA — The chairman of the Senate committee on Finance has assured on Saturday that they can pass the Php 2.606-trillion 2015 General Appropriations Act (GAA) before Congress goes on recess on Christmas break.

Senator Chiz Escudero said they will do their best to avoid reenacted budget. Malacanang is asking Congress to pass the P2.606 trillion national budget for 2015.

“Of course, we will work hard to beat the deadline. Our deadline is December. We already started passing the budget before New Year since 2010 and we will continue to do it,” Escudero said in a text message.

Some lawmakers fear that the budget will be hostage if members of the House of Representatives failed to produce quorum. Navotas Rep. Toby Tiangco is always questioning the quorum.

When asked about his opinion on the moves being pushed by Tiangco by questioning quorum to set pressure on Budget Secretary Florencio Abad to release an “unsanitized list” of lawmakers and the 16,000 projects funded by the Disbursement Acceleration Program, the senator said he will cross the bridge when he gets there.

Tiangco insists that the list turned over by Abad is incomplete claiming that some names of lawmakers were not available and project descriptions being too vague.

Escudero believes that Speaker Sonny Belmonte can resolve the problem and form a quorum during budget deliberation.

The effect of reenacted budget is no new projects would be funded and be forced to operate on a lower budget.