Thursday, July 24, 2014

Malacañang wants Constitution ‘revisited’

MALACAÑANG urged Congress Thursday to revisit provisions of the Constitution, in connection with the Supreme Court’s (SC) July 1 decision declaring as unconstitutional key portions of the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP).

Communications Secretary Herminio B. Coloma, Jr. told a press briefing that Congress could “introduce amendments or enact new laws” to shed light on certain constitutional provisions, particularly those cited in the high court ruling on the controversial presidential fund.

“Since we’re talking about the differences in interpretation of the law, maybe it would be better if Congress considers introducing amendments to existing laws, or enact new ones to clarify, particularly, the issues that arise from the SC decision on the DAP,” Mr. Coloma said.

“Focus should be on provisions related to savings and the process of augmentation,” he added.

On the presentation of the 2015 budget to Congress this month, Mr. Coloma said Congress can introduce amendments “to avoid any more questions with the implementation of the budget for next year.”

He said members of the Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC) -- composed of the Budget Secretary, the Director-General of the NEDA Secretariat, the Executive Secretary, the Finance Secretary and the Bangko Sentral Governor -- can present “certain proposals on how the proposed General Appropriations Act for 2015 may be framed in such a way that it will be compliant with the Supreme Court decision.” Mr. Coloma said the Budget department is already on top of this.

House Speaker Feliciano R. Belmonte, Jr. told BusinessWorld that amendments are also listed among the priorities of Congress.

“We want to do that, to study the... provisions that were cited in the DAP ruling. That’s part of the priorities. The term saving is not defined in the Constitution,” Mr. Belmonte said in a text message. -- Imee Charlee C. Delavin

 
source:  Businessworld

No comments:

Post a Comment