Senate retains OVP’s proposed P733-M budget

FILE PHOTO VP Sara Duterte

MANILA, Philippines — The Senate has retained the proposed P733-million budget of the Office of the Vice President (OVP) approved by the House of Representatives in its 2025 General Appropriations Bill (GAB), according to Senator Grace Poe.

Poe, who heads the Senate committee on finance, said they made the decision after the OVP failed to submit documents needed to clarify some issues regarding the proposed budget.

“Yes. We reached out several times to the Office of the Vice President requesting them to submit documents to clarify issues regarding their budget, but they have not submitted as of today,” Poe told reporters on Tuesday. “So, we decided to retain the GAB amount pending submission and review of these documents.”

“While we cannot account for movements in the figures on an apples-to-apples basis, we can say that we retained the original budget for the relevant item in DSWD (Department of Social Welfare and Development) while we increased further the item under the DOH (Department of Health) budget,” she added.

Last September 12, the House committee on appropriations recommended reducing the proposed P2.037- billion budget of the OVP to P733.198 million.

The budget proposal was cut by P1.293159 billion, according to Marikina Rep. Stella Quimbo.

She disclosed that the reduction would affect social service programs of the OVP which lawmakers intend to realign to programs of other government agencies like the DSWD and DOH.

The panel recommended allocating P646,532,796 to an initiative of the DSWD, while the other P646,533,796 to a program of the DOH.