Bayan Muna Party Rejects the Changes to Budget

Bayan Muna was opposing the plan of DBM (Department of Budget and Management) to insert provisions in 2015 national budget approved last week by House of Representatives that will allow Malacañang to declare any item savings and use these as pork barrel funds for its political allies.

“DBM admitted that there are errata in the budget we passed. We’re going to demand that the moment they insert the errata that must be subjected for deliberations again. We did not see these errata, so we approved a wrong budget. It is as good as if the second reading did not take place.” said by Neri Colmenares a Bayan Muna Representative.

“The errata refer to mistakes in figures that the DBM wants to change,” Colmenares said.

Friday, House approved second reading on the proposed 2015 General Appropriation Act (GAA) with third reading or final approval for formality. But representative Colmenares claimed that DBM wanted to insert “redefinition” or “reprioritization” of savings in a budget items.

Colmenares to seek clarification from Budget Secretary Florencio Abad and Davao Representative Isidro Ungab, on the appropriations committee chair, on the supposed errata.

“It is unclear whether the DBM has officially admitted that they have inserted errata in the budget. The moment they admit that they inserted something, that makes it invalid,” Colmenares said.