THE Senate ratified on Monday the bicameral conference committee report on the proposed P3.002- trillion national budget for 2016 but the House of Representatives failed to act on it despite the presence of quorum.
A total of 190 lawmakers in the House responded to the roll call.
House Majority Leader and Mandaluyong Rep. Neptali Gonzales Jr. said the House will ratify it either Tuesday or Wednesday. “The session days are not yet over,” Gonzales said.
The House devoted the Monday session on the discussion of the Palace-backed Bangsamoro Basic Law.
Congress will go into recess starting December 19 for a Holiday break. It will resume session on January 19, 2016.
In the upper chamber, Senator Loren Legarda, chair of the committee on finance, expressed confidence that the President would be able to sign the proposed 2016 national budget before Christmas.
“We are confident that the President will be able to sign the proposed 2016 national budget into law before Christmas. In a way, this is our gift to the people as we have introduced allocations and provisions that will benefit those who most need government support,” Legarda said in a statement last week.
She said among the highlights of the budget was the strong support for quality education with the increased allocation for the Department of Education to support the implementation of the K-12 program, particularly for the construction of classrooms and hiring of additional teachers. The total budget of Deped is P411.905 billion under the bill.
She said all state universities and colleges also recei ved additional funding for the “Tulong- Dunong” program, academic buildings, provision of equipment and other needed facilities. She said the total budget of SUCs is P47 billion.
“For the first time, the national budget includes funding for the payment of the total administrative disability pension for surviving spouses of deceased World War II veterans and partial payment for TAD pension for living post-war veterans who are at least 80 years of age as of 2016,” she said.
Under the proposed 2016 national budget, P2.723 billion has been allocated for the payment of total administrative disability pension for surviving spouses of deceased World War II veterans.
The Senate also approved on third and final reading a bill seeking to protect depositors and creditors from financial ruin while keeping confidence in the banking system.
Senator Serge Osmeña, principal author and sponsor of Senate Bill No. 2976, noted that “depositors and creditors of closed banks have to bear the adverse consequences of bank closures. He said they experience significant loss of their hard-earned money and disruption of their business.”
Osmeña said the passage of the bill into law would reinforce the authorities of the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corporation so it could better provide “safety nets” for the bank’s financial system.
Under the measure, PDIC would be able to assist banks in danger of closing while they are still operating and not after they have been close by the BangkoSentralngPilipinas.
Osmeña said PDIC would also be able to give depositors immediate access to their insured deposits upon closure of their banks and increase their chances of recovering uninsured deposits by elevating the status of the claims of uninsured depositors in the hierarchy of claims against the remaining assets of the banks under liquidation.
He said the bill would also allow PDIC to sell all the assets and assume the liabilities of a closed bank as a mode of liquidation without the need for court approval.
