Nothing wrong in hiking unprogrammed funds – Zubiri

THERE is nothing unconstitutional with increasing the Executive’s unprogrammed appropriations in the 2024 General Appropriations Bill (GAB), Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri yesterday said as he defended the decision of the bicameral conference budget committee to hike the allocation by P455 billion.

Zubiri, in an interview with dzBB radio, said there is nothing unlawful with adding allocations for unprogrammed appropriations as long as the programmed appropriations are not increased.

“I feel that it is not unconstitutional as long as the P5.768 trillion is in the programmed funds. Pwedeng liitan ang budget pero hindi pwedeng dagdagan. ‘Yan po ang nakalagay sa Constitution (The proposed national budget can be decreased but you cannot increase it.

That is written in the Constitution),” he said.

Besides, he added, unprogrammed appropriations can only be funded once the government has extra revenues.

Unprogrammed appropriations provide standby authority to the Executive to incur additional agency obligations for priority programs or projects when revenue sources exceed the revenue collections and when additional grants or foreign funds are generated.

“It has been done on many, many budget seasons, even in the budget of the previous administration. I don’t believe it’s unconstitutional… ‘Yung unprogrammed, ‘yan po ay ginagawa every budget season sa mga program na sa tingin naman kapag meron na pong budget na additional o pondo na additional ang gobyerno pwede po ‘yan mabayaran, pwede ‘yan ma-obliga

(It has been done during many, many budget seasons, even in the budget of the previous administration. I don’t believe it’s unconstitutional…The unprogrammed [appropriations] is included every budget season for programs that we think that if we have additional funds, if the government has additional funds, they can push through, the funds can be obligated),” Zubiri said.

The Senate leader’s position runs counter with the position taken by Senate minority leader Aquilino Pimentel III and former senator Panfilo Lacson, who both said that the P455 billion additional unprogrammed appropriations in the 2024 GAB is unconstitutional.

Pimentel and Lacson said that lawmakers