Senator Risa Hontiveros (Senate Public Relations and Information Bureau)
MANILA, Philippines — As the Senate started its scrutiny of the proposed national budget for 2025, Deputy Minority Leader Risa Hontiveros warned against the “deprioritization” of billions of funds similar to what happened to the 2024 budget proposal.
Speaking before the Senate committee on finance’s public hearing on Tuesday, Hontiveros recalled that in the consolidated bicameral conference committee report on the 2024 budget, a “huge part” of the budget as indicated in the National Expenditure Program (NEP) “vanished” from the programmed appropriations.
“Isinantabi ito at inilipat sa low priority na unprogrammed appropriations,” she said.
(This was set aside and transferred to low-priority unprogrammed appropriations.)
Hontiveros cited the P70-billion allocation for flood control projects transferred to an unprogrammed budget.
“Lumobo po ang low priority na unprogrammed funds at umabot sa P731 billion — mula sa panukalang P282 billion ng Department of Budget Management — at isinantabi nga dito ang mga mahahalagang mungkahing budget ng Presidente,” she said.
(Low-priority unprogrammed funds ballooned to P731 billion from the proposed P282 billion by the Department of Budget and Management, and with this, the important budget proposed by the President was set aside.)
Hontiveros also said that at present, the Department of Finance seems like “raiding” the budget of government corporations, particularly the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation and the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corporation to gain more funds for “priority programs” placed under unprogrammed funds.
“I hope we do not make this mistake again of deprioritizing hundreds of billions of funds proposed by the President and already approved by both the House and the Senate,” she added.
To prevent a repeat of the deprioritization of funds, Hontiveros suggested that the following be followed:
- The bicameral conference committee should return to the original practice of a full face-to-face meeting and deliberation of all its members
- The full bicameral conference committee report, including how it deviates from the Senate version of the General Appropriations Bill, should be made available to all senators before it is reported to the plenary.
The proposed 2025 national funding amounts to P6.352 trillion. It is about P500 billion higher than the approved 2024 national budget of P5.7 trillion.
READ: DBCC proposes P6.2-trillion national budget for 2025