Marcos wants defunded programs in NEP ‘reexamined’

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. signing the 2025 national budget (FILE) PHOTO: Official Facebook page of the Presidential Communications Office

MANILA, Philippines — President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Tuesday ordered government agencies to “reexamine” the defunded programs in the National Expenditure Program (NEP).

“We have to reexamine so that the programs that we wanted—that we put in the NEP—can somehow be restored,” Marcos said, as quoted by the Presidential Communications Office (PCO) in a statement, during the 18th Cabinet Meeting in Malacañang on Tuesday.

“For the rest of the departments, I need you to give me the priorities  – the things that we prioritized in the NEP that were removed in terms of budgeting, in terms of appropriations,” he added.

Marcos said he is willing to sit down with each department to ensure the government’s actual expenditure program will resemble the NEP.

Among what needs to be fixed, said Marcos, is the P12-billion decrease in the budget for the maintenance of roads, P500-million reduction in the funding for routine maintenance of bridges and the P21-billion budget cut for feasibility studies.

READ: Marcos vetoes flood control projects in 2025 national budget

Tuesday’s cabinet meeting marks the first full cabinet discussions held in 2025.

It comes barely a week after Marcos signed into law the P6.326-trillion General appropriations Act (GAA) for 2025 where he directly vetoed P194-billion line items deemed inconsistent with the administration’s priority programs.