THE leadership of the House of Representatives yesterday announced that it will stop the practice of forming a small committee to approve or reject proposed individual amendments to the General Appropriations Bill (GAB), or the proposed annual national budget.
Nueva Ecija Rep. Mikaela Angela Suansing, chairman of the House Committee on Appropriations, made the announcement just a week after Navotas Rep. Tobias Tiangco slammed the House leadership for adhering to the practice in the wake of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s call for budget reforms in his fourth State of the Nation Address (SONA) last July 28.
Tiangco, an independent member of the House, has said that the House must “stop the crooked practice of forming a small committee to consider individual amendments.”
“Follow the process like how ordinary bills are treated, stop the practice of having only four people deciding,” he said, adding that before approval on second reading and after committee amendments are considered, “every single individual amendment must be debated in open session.”
Suansing said: “We will abolish the practice of forming a ‘small committee’ to deliberate on institutional amendments.”
She said that in place of the small committee, the appropriations panel will form a “sub-committee on budget amendments review,” which will be tasked to facilitate and deliberate on proposed amendments submitted by departments, agencies and House members who are pushing for higher congressional allocations for their districts.
“This sub-committee will be formed at the beginning, manifested at the organizational meeting of the committee on appropriations. The sub-committee will run parallel to the budget deliberations of the committee on appropriations. They will continually receive proposed amendments and deliberate on these. Meaning, all throughout September to October,” she said.
“Navigating proposed amendments in the budget process in the House is always very complicated. Aside from the agencies, we’re comprised of 315 plus congressmen each advocating for their respective districts,” she added.
Suansing said the sub-committee will be composed of the senior vice chair of the panel, a member nominated by each political party and the Party-list Coalition and members from the minority bloc to ensure “proper representation for all members and exhaustive deliberations.” She said the sub-committee’s deliberations will be “open to the public and transparent.”
Suansing said the House may take another month to begin its budget deliberations because of the initial preparations that have to be undertaken.
She said the Executive’s submission of the National Expenditure Program (NEP) to Congress is tentatively expected by next week and the Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC) may hold its briefing on September 1.
Suansing said that while the budget hearings may begin later than the deliberations in previous years, the committee has already lined up preliminary activities.
She said the adjustment in the schedule is brough about by the congressional calendar since the regular session of Congress had yet to convene when the NEP calendar was being finalized.
Suansing assured the public that the House will meet its deadline. “We will get the budget passed on time. And very strongly deliberated on. That’s what’s important,” she said.
SENATE HEARINGS
Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian, chairperson of the Senate Committee on Finance, said “insertions” and other interventions from lawmakers in the proposed national budget will be eliminated when the upper chamber deliberates on the proposed government spending plan for 2026.
“Ngayon, malaki ang clamor for transparency. So ang direction namin, ang tawag nga namin internally, we will experience a golden age of transparency and accountability (At present, there is a big clamor for transparency. So, our direction will be, as what we call it internally, we will experience a golden age of transparency and accountability),” Gatchalian said during the “Kapihan sa Senado” media forum.
He said full transparency in the proposed budget will be achieved by posting the NEP on the websites of the House, the Senate, and the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) so the people can see how the Executive branch prepared the budget plan.
He said the House-approved GAB and the Senate’s third reading version of the budget bill will also be posted online.
He noted that at present, only the NEP and the final version of the General Appropriations Act (GAA) are available to the public.
With public posting of the budget versions in varying levels, Gatchalian said the people can now see the “movement” of the proposed budget, thus they can question lawmakers if they observe something irregular or anomalous.
He said lawmakers will simply the terms to be used in the spending bill so the people can better understand the budget process.
He said the Senate finance panel is now studying how it can come up with infographics or dashboard-style reporting of the budget movement that will be upload on his own website.
“Dealing with numbers is really very confusing to some. But if we visualize it or make it into a graph form, that can be easily understood. So, at least in my own website, we’re studying that possibility,” he said in Filipino.
EDUCATION SECTOR
Gatchalian vowed Congress will give utmost priority to the education sector when they deliberate on the proposed national budget for 2026.
“First of all, we will prioritize education in the 2026 budget. This will be an education budget. We heard the President in his SONA that a big portion of the budget should be for education. So, we will try to allot 4 percent of the GDP [gross domestic product] or even higher for education. Right now I think we only allot 3.8 or 3.9 percent,” he said.
He said a big portion of the education sector budget will be allotted to address the reading and comprehension problems of learners by starting from Kindergarten to Grade 3, construction of more classrooms to address shortage, and hiring of additional teacher aides to do the administrative works of regular teachers.
Gatchalian clarified that prioritizing the education sector would not mean that other sectors will be left behind.
He said projects with no feasibility studies like the Ayuda sa Kapos ang Kita Program (AKAP) will not be allowed to be introduced in the national budget.
“If a mayor, governor, congressmen have pet projects, they can go to the agencies and work together,” he said.
To prevent abuses in confidential and intelligence funds, Gatchalian said allotting funds for the purpose will be limited to agencies which deal with security matters.
“That’s another principle that we will be adhering to in the Committee on Finance. Intelligence funds, confidential funds will be limited to agencies that truly require them – enforcement agencies, intelligence agencies. The confidential funds will not be free-for-all. We will definitely be very strict with the allotment of confidential funds,” he said.
FOREIGN-ASSISTED PROJECTS
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. yesterday said the country would honor its commitment and ensure funding for its counterpart budget for foreign-assisted projects, especially for big-ticket infrastructure projects and other important programs.
The President, in the first part of the “BBM Podcast Episode 3: Sa Likod ng SONA” that was aired last night, recalled how funding fore foreign-assisted projects were removed in the 2025 national budget in lieu of the budget insertions made by lawmakers.
He said this jeopardized vital infrastructure initiatives and damaged the country’s credibility with international financial institutions.
“Iyung pinakamalaking naging problema iyung foreign-assisted projects, tinanggal halos lahat nung funding. Kailangan natin ibalik iyun dahil importante iyung mga foreign-assisted projects. At saka sinisira pati ‘yan ang reputation natin (The biggest problem were the foreign-assisted projects, almost all of the funding were removed. We need to bring those back because foreign-assisted projects are important. And that also ruined our reputation),” he said.
“And the worst part of this all, iyung napupunta kung minsan iyung mga project na hindi maganda, napupunta sa unappropriated. Ano iyun, utang iyun. Nangungutang tayo para mangurakot itong mga ito. Sobra na iyun. Sobra na iyun (And the worst part, sometimes projects that are not good are sent to the unappropriated category. But these are borrowings. We borrow to fund the corrupt. That’s too much. That’s too much,” he added.
In the podcast, the President reiterated his SONA statement that his administration would rather operate under a reenacted budget than approve a national budget that deviates from its priority programs or tolerates misuse of public funds.
Marcos said while Congress has the constitutional power over the budget process, it is still the Executive department that plans, seeks funds and ensures that public funds are used to serve the people.
“Hindi nawawala, nawawaldas, nananakaw ang pera ng tao. Iyon lang naman ang habol namin (Ensuring that the people’s money is not lost, wasted, or stolen. That’s all we’re after),” he stressed. – With Raymond Africa and Jocelyn Montemayor
