We know there’s a lot of flexibility provided by the Bayanihan Act in terms of recasting the two current budgets we have. Problem is, they don’t want to touch the fiscal space for infra dev’t which is almost 1T in both budgets. They want to keep Build, Build, Build.

If I were Avisado’s staff, I’d recommend non-strategic infra projects to be discontinued for now.

Heck, there’s about 57B just for MULTIPURPOSE HALLS in the DPWH Budget that under VILP and LIP. Right, @rupertnotholmes?

Pucha. Hindi na natapos ang pagpopondo ng national government sa mga ganyang projects. Surely, those projects can be discontinued, declared as savings, and can be used to augment urgent to meet the needs for the crisis.

But what’s the problem really? What’s keeping the Executive from using Unprogrammed Appropriations and immediatey passing Supplemental Appropriations? Kung additional authority pala ang kulang, sana hindi na lang nagsama ng budget provisions sa Bayanihan Act

Even then, if appro cover lang rin naman ang kulang and assuming may excess revenues, may Unprogrammed Appropriations.

No one is floating the possibility of tapping the Unprogrammed Appropriations which are stand by appropriations built in every annual budget.

As for passing a supplemental appropriations bill to remedy the insufficient appro cover well, I’m not quite confident BTr can certify there’s excess revenues. There’s also the problem of timing.

Wouldn’t it be more pragmatic for the Executive to tap the Unprogrammed Appro for appro cover first before considering a supplemental appropriations bill?

Pareho namang may Unprogrammed Appro sa 2019 and 2020 GAA di ba? Both have a general PAP that can be used for COVID-19

Using the Unprogrammed Appropriations doesn’t need congressional approval.

For me, finding the appropriations cover really isn’t the problem. There are those options available even if Avisado says the entire 4.1T fiscal space can’t be reallocated.

Sana nagpass na lang agad hg Supplemental Appropriations.

REAL TALK tayo: Hindi magawa ang dalawang options na yan kasi at the end of the day, the question remains, can DOF/BTr/BSP finance the budget whether existing ones, Unprogrammed Appro or Supplemental Appro?

There’s no excess revenue collections so far. At least, none I’ve read in the news.

I highly doubt there will be any windfall collection during this crisis. Without that, neither passing supplemental appropriations, nor tapping the unprogrammed appropriations can be done.

If cash really was overflowing from all the various sources as Dominguez wants to imply, either of the options can immediately be done. Yet, apart from going the route of using pooled savings, they can’t go for the two other options because of money constraints.