A LAWMAKER on Tuesday said members of the House of Representatives’ budget panel could face legal cases for what he alleged as falsification of documents for approving the budget bill this year despite having blank line items.
Marikina Rep. Stella Luz A. Quimbo, the House budget committee’s officer-in-charge (OIC), on Monday said the bicameral conference committee allowed legislative staff members to fill in the blanks in the budget bill’s committee report to “implement corrections.”
She asserted there are no infirmities to the P6.326-trillion national budget, citing the budget as valid and constitutional.
“When she admitted to what happened, she confessed that there was falsification of legislative documents,” Davao City Rep. Pantaleon D. Alvarez said in a statement.
“What likely happened is that the congressmen in the [House] Committee on Appropriations instructed the staff, or themselves filled in the blanks even after the ratification was completed,” he added.
Mr. Alvarez, a former House speaker during the presidency of Rodrigo R. Duterte, said that those who falsify congressional documents could be imprisoned for up to six years with an accompanying fine.
The falsification of legislative documents is committed when “any person who, without authority… alters any bill, resolution, or ordinance enacted or approved or pending approval by either House of the Legislature,” according to the Philippine Revised Penal Code.
“The amounts they inserted there were not approved by the plenary, so they are not authorized by Congress. The placement of those amounts and figures was done under no authority,” Mr. Alvarez said in Filipino.
“Our position is that the ratification of the corrected bicameral conference committee report is unnecessary,” said Ms. Quimbo, citing a provision allowing Congress to issue corrections on the approved conference report.
Meanwhile, Davao City Rep. Isidro T. Ungab said they filed a petition before the Supreme Court assailing the legality of the national spending plan.
“After all the long discussions about the validity and constitutionality of the 2025 General Appropriations Act, we deemed it appropriate to bring the matter to the Supreme Court for adjudication,” he told BusinessWorld in a Viber message. — Kenneth Christiane L. Basilio
