House appropriations committee approved OP budget in less than 5 minutes

Congress passed up two chances to scrutinize President Arroyo's ballyhooed spending on dinners and travels.

The first instance was Friday's hearing of the Senate sub-committee on finance. The second was the House committee on appropriations on Monday where congressmen went easy on executive secretary Eduardo Ermita.

The committee took no more than five minutes to approve the P1.6 billion proposed budget of the Office of the President.

"The hearing on the budget presentation of the Office of President (OP) and the Office of the Vice President (OVP) were dispensed because, as a matter of tradition, we extend courtesy to these high offices. That's the reason why the process was that fast," said House committee on appropriations chair Junie Cua (Quirino province).

Cua echoed explanation of Senator Joker Arroyo, reported to be the only senator present at the Senate budget hearing on Friday.

No objections were raised at the hearing when the committee approved the OP and OVP budgets.

Bukidnon Rep. Teofisto Guingona, who exposed that the Office of the President overspent in travel expenses by P1 billion, was not present at the hearing.

Not even the Opposition Rep. Salvador Escudero (Sorsogon province)--father or vocal administration critic and presidential aspirant Senator Francis Escudero--scrutinized the President's planned spending.

Rare opportunity

Aside from overspending its travel allocation, President Arroyo's lavish dinners also made headlines in international and local newspapers.

It was the New York Post and Washington Post, respectively, which broke stories on President Arroyo's US$20,000 dinner at Le Cirque and $15,000 dinner at Bobby Van's. Malacañang said no taxpayers' money was not spent for the dinners. Leyte Rep. Martin Romualdez and Quezon Rep. Danilo Suarez supposedly paid for them.

The implementation of Executive Order 464 or the so-called gag order on Cabinet members makes the budget hearing of the Office of the President a rare opportunity for Palace officials to answer questions from congressmen.

EO 464 mandates that the approval of the Office of the President is needed before a Cabinet member can attend a congressional hearing. This order has been used a number of times to prevent Palace officials to explain controversies hounding President Arroyo.

Latecomer at hearing

Bayan Muna Rep. Teodoro Casino planned to grill executive secretary Eduardo Ermita on the controversial spendings. But he arrived at around 10 a.m. and missed the budget hearing which started promptly at 9:30 a.m.

According to the day's schedule, the committee was supposed to deliberate on the budget of the Office of the President after taking up the budget of the Office of the Vice President. Both budgets were swiftly approved.

"Specifically, we wanted to scrutinize the Office of the President's travel spending. We would have wanted to ask who paid for the fares and accommodations of the congressmen who joined President Arroyo in the US trip. How much was spent in the dinners? How do they manage these kinds of travels? Why are they pointing at each other on who really spent for the congressmen. These are the things we would have wanted to ask," he told reporters.

Casino hit the long standing tradition of Congress to go easy on the budget of the Office of the President.
"It's not a good tradition. They didn't even make the Office of the President present their budget to the committee on appropriations.

Other chances

Cua assured reporters that there will be other chances to scrutinize the budget of the Office of the President.

"It doesn't mean that we will not scrutinize the budget of the Office of the President anymore. Our staff will look into it. We will also look into it in executive meetings. We will do this before we come out with a committee report," Cua explained.

"The process doesn't stop in the mother committee. We still have a sub-committee. We still have plenary debates. I'm certain in the plenary debates, all these issues will be taken up," he added.

But Casino said the committee level is the best time to scrutinize the budget.

"Of course, we will scrutinize when it goes to the plenary. But it's best if we do that as early as the committee level. We have a number of basic questions. The problem (is that), in the plenary, we will have limited time. There will be a strong pressure to speed up the deliberations," Casino said. – abs-cbnNEWS.com/ Newsbreak