Proposed 2025 budget ‘anti-poor, militaristic’ – Castro

House Deputy Minority Leader France Castro (Photo from House of Representative FB Page)

MANILA, Philippines — ACT Teachers party-list Rep. France Castro believes the P6.352 trillion proposed budget for 2025 is “anti-poor” as it supposedly fails to address the concerns and needs of Filipinos.

In a statement on Wednesday, Castro said the 2025 National Expenditures Program (NEP) submitted to Congress is also “militaristic” even with the budget for the defense sector and confidential expenses going down.

“This proposed budget fails to address the root causes of poverty and inequality in our country. We demand a people-centered budget that prioritizes social services, supports workers’ rights, and promotes genuine agrarian reform and national industrialization,” she said.

“This militaristic approach, purportedly to address developments in the West Philippine Sea (WPS), is absurd.  We should demilitarize the WPS and not further militarize it. The Marcos government also earmarked P5.9 billion for intelligence expenses, and confidential expenses are at P4.36 billion, slightly higher than this year’s P4.111 billion,” she added.

Castro also said that funds allocated to the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-Elcac) should be reduced, given that appropriations to the education sector still do not conform to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) standards.

“The red-tagging [NTF-ELCAC] has P7.8 billion for its proposed budget in 2025. Such allocations divert crucial funds from social services and genuine economic development,” she said.

“While the Marcos Jr. administration boasts of allocating 15.4 percent of the budget to education, this is still far below the Unesco-recommended 20 percent of the national budget or 6 percent of the GDP for education,” she added. “The P977.6 billion for education barely scratches the surface of the sector’s needs, especially considering the learning crisis exacerbated by the pandemic.”

Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman on Monday said the proposed Confidential and Intelligence Funds (CIF) for 2025 went down by 16 percent, or from P12.37 billion in the actual 2024 budget to P10.29 billion in the 2025 NEP.

READ: DBM: Confidential, intel funds for 2025 down 16%

The intelligence fund of the Department of Transportation — the mother agency of the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) — remained at P400 million.

On the other hand, the intelligence fund allocation of the Department of National Defense — another agency crucial to securing the country’s territory — decreased from P2.811 billion in 2024 to P1.761 billion in the proposed budget for 2025.

READ: House to fund WPS efforts amid intel budget cut: Measure isn’t cast in stone

On Tuesday, House leaders particularly Majority Floor Leader Manuel Jose Dalipe and Senior Deputy Speaker Aurelio Gonzales Jr. said the chamber will support efforts to secure the WPS, even with lower CIF allocation.

According to Dalipe, nothing has been set in stone yet, noting that the House can make adjustments if needed.

The NEP was submitted to Congress on Monday, seven days after President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s  State of the Nation Address (Sona).

Under the 1987 Constitution, the budget should be transmitted to Congress within 30 days after the Sona.