VICE President Leonor “Leni” Robredo on Wednesday appealed to the appropriations committee of the House of Representatives to reconsider its decision to slash the budget of her office for 2019 by P100 million.
The committee approved a P447.6-million budget, which is lower than the proposed P549 million.
“We proposed P549 million for 2019. That is an additional P6 million. But what was recommended by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) was about P100 million less than our budget last year,” Robredo said during deliberations.
Robredo said the largest portion of the budget of the Office of the Vice President (OVP) was lodged under financial assistance subsidies for the poor.
The approved OVP budget is much smaller compared to the P6.77-billion budget that was given to the Office of the President (OP) for 2019.
The OP’s budget is 12.32 percent higher than this year’s P6.03 billion.
(G. JALEA, TMT)