Duterte lying about blank budget entries – PBBM

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FORMER president Rodrigo Duterte is lying about the alleged missing or blank allocations in the P6.326 trillion national budget for 2025, President Marcos Jr. said yesterday.

The President said that being a former president, Duterte knows that the General Appropriations Act (GAA) cannot be enacted if there were blank spaces or missing appropriations.

“He’s lying. He’s a president, he knows that you cannot pass a GAA without any, with a blank… He’s lying. And he’s lying because he knows perfectly well that that doesn’t ever happen,” Marcos said in an interview during the launch of the Tesla Center in Taguig City.

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He stressed that enacting a spending measure with blank spaces has never happened in the country’s history and was never practiced by the government.

Duterte and Davao City Rep. Isidro Ungab over the weekend

raised alleged discrepancies in the signed bicameral conference committee report on the 2025 national budget and the GAA signed by the President.

Ungab claimed allocations for certain items under the Department of Agriculture (DA) and unprogrammed appropriations were left blank in the bicameral conference committee report that was signed by panel members.

He said, though, that in the enrolled copy of the spending bill that was sent to Malacañang, the blanks were already filled up.

Duterte said that Ungab’s allegations were true, this would render the 2025 GAA invalid. He said the measure should be recalled and returned to Congress.

The former president also said that those responsible for the blank allocations should be held liable.

Marcos said specific programs and projects, along with their corresponding allocations, were specified or itemized in the GAA.

He urged the public to review the signed 2025 budget, which is accessible on the website of the Department of Budget and Management (DBM).

Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin said Duterte’s and Ungab’s allegations were “fake” news.

“The peddling of such fake news is outrightly malicious and should be condemned as criminal. No page of the 2025 national budget was left unturned before the President signed it into law,” Bersamin said.

He said all of 4,057 pages of the two thick volumes of the measure, “which were printed in fine print — with nearly sixty lines on each page,” were exhaustively reviewed by hundreds of professional staff from Congress and the DBM and even underwent meticulous line-by-line scrutiny before it was signed into law.

“It is impossible for any funding items to be left blank, as alleged by misinformed and malicious sources. The true facts and the printed figures appearing in the GAA easily debunk the malicious claims of deliberate blanks being left for filling in,” he said.

The DBM, in a statement, also slammed the “malicious and irresponsible” allegation.

The DBM echoed Marcos’ and Bersamin’s statements that there were no blank pages or figures in the GAA, stressing that such “allegations are completely false and reckless”.

It said the alleged bicameral conference committee report that supposedly contained the blank spaces was not transmitted to the Executive branch for signing.

“To reiterate, the bill presented to and signed by the President is a complete document, with no blank pages or missing details. In no case does the Executive issue a GAA with blank pages or figures,” it said.

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“With this, we urge our fellow Filipinos to be mindful, cautious, and to first verify information before making any allegations. Clear and accurate understanding is critical for constructive dialogue. We kindly appeal to our kababayans to avoid spreading false information; communication is a powerful tool that can make or break a nation,” it also said.

Lawyer Salvador Panelo, the former chief presidential legal counsel of Duterte, said the former president merely expressed a legal opinion on the assumption that what Ungab said was accurate.

“FPRRD (Duterte) is saying if, as charged by Ungab, the GAA was signed with infirmities, then those responsible could go to jail. FPRRD is expressing a legal opinion on the assumption that Ungab’s charges are true and if the GAB as signed by PBBM contains the same irregularities,” Panelo said.

He added that the Palace had said that the allegations are not true, which could easily be proven by presenting the GAA for public scrutiny.

“The Palace says it’s not true. The best evidence is the document itself,” he said.

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