Senate deliberation on 2025 budget set to start on Aug. 13

SP ESCUDERO RECEIVES 2025 NEP: Senate President Francis Escudero and other senators receive a copy of the National Expenditure Program (NEP) for fiscal year 2025 from Budget Sec. Amenah Pangandaman at the Senate Ceremonial Hall in Pasay City Monday, July 29, 2024. Also in photo are Senate President Pro Tempore Jinggoy Ejercito Estrada, Majority Leader Francis Tolentino, Sens. Grace Poe, Alan Peter Cayetano, Victor Joseph Ejercito and Budget Undersecretaries Sasa Del Rosario, Leo Larcia, Wilford Wong and Budget Assistant Sec. Diana Camacho-Mercado. (Photo from Senate Public Relations and Information Bureau)

MANILA, Philippines – The Senate will start deliberating the proposed P6.352-trillion national budget for 2025 on Aug. 13 with a briefing from the Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC), according to Senate President Francis Escudero.

Speaking to reporters in an ambush interview on Tuesday, Escudero said the upper chamber is eyeing to wrap all these before the year ends.

“We will finish that before the year ends along with the bicameral conference committee report for it to be signed by the President. That’s always the schedule of the Senate and the House of Representatives. We are expecting the DBCC debates hopefully on August 13,” he said in Filipino.

“Well, that’s briefing and debates because senators are allowed to ask questions,” he added.

In a message to reporters, committee on finance chairperson Sen. Grace Poe confirmed that the DBCC briefing will be conducted from August 13 to 14, while the budget hearings will run from August 15 to October 18.

According to Poe, they aim to submit and approve the committee report by the first week of December.

Asked if Poe considers passing the 2025 national budget a big challenge considering it is an “election budget,” the senator said, “It’s always a challenge handling the budget.”

“The money we will allocate comes from the hard work and tax contributions of our countrymen. We need to ensure that we are responsive to the needs of our people, handle the budget equitably, especially given our limited fiscal space, and with full transparency,” she added.

Escudero maintained that it is against the law to use any government funds, such as aid, for the campaign of any aspiring government official.

“May Comelec (Commission on Elections) regulations na rin kaugnay niyan at maraming kandidato na-disqualify noong 2022 elections dahil din dyan,” he said.

(There are Comelec regulations about this and many candidates were disqualified in the 2022 elections because of this.)

In a media briefing earlier, Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman said enveloped in the P6.352-trillion national allocation for 2025 are confidential and intelligence funds (CIF) which went down by 16 percent if compared to the 2024 General Appropriations Act.

“The DBM got a total proposed P11.39-billion CIF for 2025, of which confidential is P5.22 billion, intelligence is P6.17 billion. But we only approved a P10.29-billion CIF. The breakdown is P4.37 billion for confidential expenses and P5.92 billion for intelligence expenses,” she said.

READ: Marcos’ office retains P4.5-B confidential, intel fund for 2025