Proposed P6.3-T budget for 2025 gets House’s OK

Facade of the House of Representatives. | PHOTO: Official website of the House of Representatives / congress.gov.ph

MANILA, Philippines — The House of Representatives on Wednesday night passed on the third and final reading the proposed P6.352-trillion national budget for fiscal year 2025, which includes the drastically slashed P733-million budget for the Office of the Vice President (OVP).

House Bill No. 10800, which contains the 2025 General Appropriations Act, was approved with 285 affirmative votes, three against, and zero abstentions.

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Before its passage, Deputy Speaker and Cebu Rep. Vincent Franco Frasco approved a motion from Iloilo Rep. Janette Garin to adopt the amendments under Committee Report No. 1208, which recommended that the P1.3 billion allotted for the OVP’s socioeconomic and welfare programs be realigned to equivalent services under the health and social welfare departments.

This left Vice President Sara Duterte’s office with a P733-million budget for 2025 out of the initial request of P2.037 billion. But the final amount may still change after the House also assigned a small committee to resolve individual amendments to the national budget.

During the plenary deliberations for the OVP budget, ACT Teachers Rep. France Castro said she would propose further reducing it to P529.6 million, leaving only the budget for personnel services (P177 million) intact while cutting maintenance and other operating expenses by 70 percent.

Snubbed

Neither Duterte nor any of the OVP staff had attended the House deliberations since Monday, the first day of the plenary debates. They also snubbed the last committee-level budget hearings held by the appropriations panel on Sept. 10 after Duterte took offense at being asked to explain how her office spent millions of pesos in confidential funds in 2022 and 2023.

But in a statement, Speaker Martin Romualdez said he had asked his colleagues to just adopt the committee report and avoid further cuts to the OVP budget.

The Senate will prioritize the proposed budget when plenary sessions resume on Nov. 4, according to Senate President Francis Escudero. Congress is currently in recess.

Finance committee chair Sen. Grace Poe said she expected the transmittal of the House-approved version by Oct. 25. — WITH A REPORT FROM TINA G. SANTOS