Senate approved the PHP 5-trillion national budget for 2022.
2022 GAB — On Wednesday, the Senate approved on third and final reading the General Appropriations Bill containing the PHP 5-trillion national budget for 2022.
Voting 22-2, the senators were allowed to pass the bill on 2nd and 3rd reading in one day as the budget measure was certified by President Rodrigo Duterte as urgent.
The members of the House of Representatives and the Senate will meet in a bicameral conference in order to reconcile the disagreeing provisions of the version of the budget bill passed by both houses.
This, after Senate Finance Committee chairman Sonny Angara introduced the individual and institutional amendments proposed by his colleagues during the Senate’s Wednesday plenary session.
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As he introduced the amendments to the 2022 General Appropriations Bill, Angara said that the Senate budget version focused on health and the country’s pandemic response.
Angara also highlighted the need to prioritize funding for the health sector considering the emergence of the Omicron variant.
According to the senator, the budget for the Department of Health (DOH) got around PHP 48 billion increase as compared to the version passed by the House of Representatives.
“Of course the [Omicron] situation is still developing, but needless to say we have to be prepared for the worst case scenario,” Angara said. “This is why, our health sector will continue to receive a significant portion of the national budget, with the Department of Health receiving over P230 billion, much higher than the P182 billion [that] was appropriated under the General Appropriations Bill passed by the House of Representatives.”
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