By ROGER M. BALANZA

The House of Representatives on Friday night, September 20,  approved the proposed PHP4.1 trillion national budget for 2020 three days after President Rodrigo R. Duterte certified House Bill No. 4228 or the General Appropriation Bill (GAB) for Fiscal Year 2020 as urgent to avoid a repeat of last year’s delay in the approval of the annual budget.

The approval by the 19th Congress comes as a speedy response to Duterte’s call for  swift legislative action on House Bill No. 4228 proposed by Davao City Representative Isidro Ungab, chair of the Committee on Appropriations: On the same day, legislators approved the 2020 budget on second, third and final reading.

This is not the first time Congress passed the annual budget on second, third and final reading on the same day. I already did this before when I was also chairman of the Appropriations Committee (in the 17th Congress), said Ungab in a post on Facebook.

The President’s certificate of urgency exempted HB No. 4228 from the three readings rule of Congress, said Ungab.