Business groups have expressed concern about the substantial changes made in the 2025 budget, including more than P200 billion slashed from programmed allocations for healthcare, social services and education, and insertions of projects “vulnerable to politicization.”
In a joint statement issued on February 5, the Financial Executives Institute of the Philippines, FinTech Alliance PH, Justice Reform Initiative Management Association of the Philippines, Makati Business Club, Philippine Business for Social Progress and the UP School of Economics Alumni Association called on Congress to ensure any future budget process is transparent, equitable, and aligned with the nation’s priorities.
The groups said the 2025 budget was “substantially changed” by the bicameral conference committee, which meets behind closed doors. They called for transparency by making public records of the committee’s discussions.
“In place of these programmed projects, the bicameral committee inserted local infrastructure projects and types of unconditional cash transfers which, we believe, promote a culture of patronage and dependency,” they said. “These types of programs are vulnerable to politicization and raise concerns of pork barrel practices, especially in light of the upcoming elections.”
The groups said while they recognize and value the president’s veto of P26 billion of the net P289 billion worth of Congressional insertions into the budget of the Department of Public Works and Highways during the bicameral conference committee, “given the amounts involved, the current state of the 2025 General Appropriations Act still does not address both the short- and long-term needs of the Filipino people, especially given that many key social services remain defunded.”
In the same statement, the business groups said Congress should support conditional cash transfers (4Ps), instead of instituting and expanding unconditional cash transfers.
They called on the secretary of the Department of Social Welfare and Development to release a list of beneficiaries per barangay as well as the details of the beneficiaries of any cash transfer.
“We urge the creation of institutional safeguards to control the use and allocation of unprogrammed funds (which) should serve its main purpose which is for emergency/unexpected expenses,” they added.