Speaker won’t yield to Senate if they propose to restore CHR budget

September 14, 2017

House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez said he will stick to the P1,000 budget given to the Commission on Human Rights for 2018 even as another House leader said he would realign the budget of the CHR and two other bodies also given a budget of P1,000 to fund the government's free college education program.

"I respect the Senate but it does not mean we will agree to what they want," said Alvarez in a radio interview on Thursday.

Although the House and Senate can reconcile their budget bills in the bicameral Commission on Appointments, Alvarez said the House will be firm in its position. The Senate, led by Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III said they will restore the proposed budget of P678 million for the CHR in their version of the budget bill.

Rep. Karlo Nograles, chairman of the House committee on appropriations, said he is proposing to realign the P2.4589 billion aggregate budget of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR), National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP), and Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) to the free college education program.

Nograles said free college education is a top priority of President Rodrigo Duterte.

“The budget will form part of the pool of funds to finance the free higher education law,” said Nograles in an interview after the House of Representatives slashed to P1,000 the budget of CHR, NCIP and ERC under the 2018 P3.767 trillion General Appropriations Bill (GAB) which was approved on second reading last Tuesday night.

Earlier, Nograles said e was able to identify P37.5 billion as stand-by funds for the free college program, which will be rolled out in 2018.

The proposed budget of CHR was P678 million while the ERC got an allocation of P650.9 million and the NCIP has original budget of P1.13 billion. DMS