Senate convenes caucus to discuss 2025 budget deliberations

MANILA, Philippines — The Senate convened on Monday afternoon into a caucus to discuss the upcoming schedule regarding the 2025 budget deliberations.

Senate Majority Leader Francis Tolentino moved for the chamber to go into an all-Senator caucus during the Monday plenary session.

But before this, Senate President Chiz Escudero faced the media and confirmed that they would discuss the schedule for budget talks concerning the national funding for next year.

“Magko-caucus kami tungkol sa schedule ng budget. Ngayon lamang kami magkikita-kita matapos ang recess at matapos ang Undas,” said Escudero in an ambush interview also on Monday.

(We will hold a caucus to discuss the budget deliberations schedule. We’re just meeting now after our recently-concluded recess and All Saints’ Day.)

The Senate chief also confirmed that the marathon budget deliberations will commence on Wednesday.

Earlier, Escudero said he sees the approval of the 2025 General Appropriations Bill by the first or second week of December.

He said the chamber was on track to finish the committee deliberations of some agencies’ budgets,  based on his discussion with  Sen. Grace Poe, who heads the Senate finance committee.

The proposed 2025 national budget amounts to P6.352 trillion.

READ: House poised to pass P6.352-T budget this week 

The figure is a 10.1 percent increase from the current national budget of P5.768 trillion, as the Department of Budget and Management had also earlier projected.