House panel respects Marcos’ line veto of 2025 budget items – Co

Rep. Elizaldy Co — File photo from Facebook page of the House of Representatives

MANILA, Philippines — The House of Representatives committee on appropriations respects President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s decision to veto some items in the 2025 national budget, Ako Bicol party-list Rep. Elizaldy Co said on Monday.

Co, chair of the appropriations panel, said Congress would remain committed to working with the executive branch — including when exercising its oversight functions, or in checking the implementation of the budget.

“We respect the president’s constitutional prerogative and judgment,” Co said in a statement.

“Congress remains committed to working closely with the executive branch,” he added.  “[We will] ensure the efficient and effective use of public funds for the benefit of Filipinos.”

Co said this hours after Marcos signed the 2025 General Appropriations Act (GAA). The budget, however, went down from the P6.352 trillion General Appropriations Bill (GAB) to just P6.326 trillion, due to the veto of P194 billion line items deemed inconsistent with the administration’s priority programs.

These include around P26 billion worth of programs and projects under the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) and P168 billion unprogrammed funds.

“While the final version of the budget reflects many of our shared priorities, some provisions required careful scrutiny. The Filipino people have spoken: every centavo must go to programs that truly uplift lives, strengthen communities, secure the future development of the Philippines,” Marcos said.

Co thanked Marcos for signing the GAB into law before the turn of the year — therefore avoiding a reenacted budget.

A reenacted budget takes place if a president fails to enact a budget bill before the calendar year ends, forcing the government to operate on the current budget for the new year.  This will effectively hamper the delivery of services since government offices may be short of funds.

According to Co, the early passage of the GAB was really intended to avoid a reenacted budget and give Marcos more time to review it.

“We prioritized the early passage of this measure to prevent a reenacted budget,” Co said. “This underscores our commitment to using the power of the purse and crafting a budget aligned with the administration’s 8-point agenda.”

Despite House majority lawmakers backing Marcos’ signing of the budget, various sectors believe that there are problems with the P6.326 trillion GAA.

In a statement on Monday, former Sen. Panfilo Lacson said that, despite Marcos’ veto of P26.06 billion from P288 billion worth of congressional insertions, education was still not given priority.

Lacson stressed that this goes against the Constitution, specifically Section 5, paragraph 5 of  Article XIV which requires that the government “assign the highest budgetary priority to education.”

Meanwhile, ACT Teachers Party-list Rep. France Castro and former lawmaker Antonio Tinio believe that Marcos’ veto was just a “deceptive maneuver to create an illusion of constitutional compliance.”

According to Castro, the P194 billion removed from DPWH and other projects would try to show that the budget for the education sector is now higher than that for infrastructure. However, budget cuts suffered by the education sector at the bicameral conference committee, like the Department of Education (DepEd), were not restored.