Filed
First Reading
Referred to the Committee on Finance, Budget and Management
Committee Report No. 56 Re: Bill No. 265 Adopted
Approved on Second Reading
Approved on Third and Final Reading
BAA No. 51Now
Parliament Bill No. 265
ApprovedCabinet measureAn Act Further Continuing the Validity of the 2020 to 2022 Special Development Fund, and for Other Purposes
Filed
First Reading
Referred to the Committee on Finance, Budget and Management
Committee Report No. 56 Re: Bill No. 265 Adopted
Approved on Second Reading
Approved on Third and Final Reading
BAA No. 51Now
Passed third reading. This measure has cleared Parliament.
What this measure does
This amends 2 budget laws at once, and in doing so changes the kind of instrument a budget extension is.
Section 1 further amends Section 3 of BAA 22 — the Special Development Fund appropriations, already extended once by BAA 34 — to run until 31 December 2024. Infrastructure capital outlays may be obligated until then, and completion, construction, inspection and payment "shall continue to be effective until fully released and disbursed". Operating expenses and other capital outlays are valid for release and obligation until the end of 2024 and then available for disbursement "until fully expended".
Section 2 amends Section 48 of BAA 23, the 2022 budget, for the second time. The exemption widens: personnel services were already excluded, and now General Administration and Support under operating expenses is excluded too. Local governments' share of income taxes collected in the region becomes available "until fully expended or disbursed". And Special Development Fund appropriations, regardless of allotment class, are valid for obligation until 31 December 2024 and available until fully expended.
Why it was proposed
No explanatory note is attached. The reasoning is the one Bill No. 179 set out 6 months earlier: a cash budgeting system that a government in transition cannot meet, in a region where calamities, right-of-way disputes and election bans routinely stop work.
What this bill adds to that argument is an admission about its own predecessors. Extending the same fund a second time is a statement that the first extension was not long enough, and replacing the second deadline with "until fully expended" is a statement that a third would not be either.
Who it affects
- Communities waiting on Special Development Fund projects appropriated between 2020 and 2022.
- Ministries and offices still holding balances from as far back as 2020.
- Constituent local government units, whose income tax share becomes available with no expiry date at all.
- Contractors on infrastructure, whose completion and payment window becomes open-ended.
- The Bangsamoro Treasury, which receives correspondingly less by reversion.
Who would implement it
- Ministry of Finance, Budget and Management (MFBM) — guidelines for the cash budgeting system as twice amended
Funding
No appropriation. No new money. The bill extends and, for several categories, removes the expiry on appropriations already made under BAA 22 and BAA 23.
What changes if it becomes law
- The 2020 to 2022 Special Development Fund runs to the end of 2024 and then until fully expended.
- Local governments' share of regional income taxes becomes available until fully expended, with no date.
- General Administration and Support under operating expenses joins personnel services as exempt from the 2022 budget's validity limit.
- Special Development Fund appropriations become open-ended regardless of allotment class.
Raised during deliberations
No published record of the debate on this measure. Parliament’s journals cover sittings up to March 2023 only, and no committee report on it has been published.
What to notice
The phrase to notice is "until fully expended". Every earlier bill in this sequence moved a deadline; this one, in 4 separate places, replaces the deadline with a condition. An appropriation available until fully expended does not lapse, does not revert to the Treasury, and does not return to Parliament for reappropriation — which means the reversion machinery in Section 19, Article XII of the Organic Law, carefully restated in Bill No. 128 a year earlier, no longer bites on that money.
That is a real transfer of control. Under a lapsing appropriation, money the government could not spend goes back and Parliament decides again what it is for. Under an open-ended one, the original decision stands indefinitely and the executive spends it whenever it manages to. Both are defensible answers to a region that cannot execute inside 12 months, but they are different answers, and this bill makes the second one without discussion.
The widening exemption tells its own story. The 2022 budget's validity clause started by exempting personnel services only; this amendment adds General Administration and Support under operating expenses. Each round of extension carves out one more category of spending that everyone knows will not finish on time.
Enacted as BAA 51. Its companion, Bill No. 266, became BAA 52, doing the same thing for the 2023 budget.
Sources