VILLAR WELCOMES END OF BUDGET DEADLOCK

Senate President Manny Villar says that legislators, who earlier locked horns over budget allocations, can now heave a sigh of relief that the deadlock in passing the proposed P1.126-trillion national budget has been ironed out by both chambers of the Congress.

Its good that the bicameral conference committee has finally ironed out their differences regarding the national budget for this year. Passing the budget is really among our priorities, this is one less concern for us when session resumes next week, says Villar.

Villar adds, With the deadlock resolved, we can submit the revisions in the budget allocations for approval upon resumption of the session next week and it can be signed by the President before Congress adjourns next month.

According to Villar, when the Senate passed the General Appropriations Act of 2007 on Dec. 4, the Senate prioritized funding for education and health.

During the bicameral conference, the senators agreed to realign the P4.7 billion elementary school feeding fund under the Department of Education to the governments school building and pre-school feeding programs as well as the hiring of new teachers.

As they say, alls well that ends well. I have always been against the practice of reenacting old budgets. There should be a new budget for every year, thats the way it should always be to avoid abuse and questionable allocation of funds, cites Villar, who chaired the Senate Committee of Finance before he assumed the Senate Presidency.