President Rodrigo urged on Monday Congress to pass a law for a P30 billion supplemental budget to augment the fund for areas affected by the Taal Volcano eruption.

In a speech in Sto. Tomas, Batangas, Duterte said lawmakers could even raise the amount to P50 billion to include funds for construction of evacuation centers.

"I will ask Congress to expedite...30 billion (pesos) would cover your everything," he said.

Duterte explained that in the P4.1 trillion budget for this year, there was no actual budget for the effects of the volcano eruption.

"The current budget was prepared last year. The budget for next year is being prepared now this year. This occurrence is not part of the budgeting. We did not expect that (Taal) would erupt. So we might need a supplemental budget from Congress," Duterte said as he assured the government has lots of money to spend.

He acknowledged no one could predict until when the Taal problem would end.

Duterte also led the distribution of P50 million to some affected local government units in Batangas.

The province of Batangas received P10 million while P5 million each for the municipalities of Agoncillo, Tanauan, Mabini, San Luis, Sto. Tomas, and San Jose, and the cities of Lipa and Batangas. Celerina Monte/DMS