NAVOTAS Rep. Toby Tiangco yesterday tried but failed to force the House Committee on Appropriations to release all the amendments introduced by the small committee of the House of Representatives in the P6.326 trillion budget for 2025 when it was still being deliberated upon in the lower house last year.
Tiangco, during the Development Budget Coordination Committee’s (DBCC) briefing on the proposed P6.793 trillion national budget for 2026, demanded that the panel chaired by Nueva Ecija Rep. Mikaela Suansing “furnish all the members of the signed report of the small committee for the 2025 budget” within five minutes, the period given to each committee member to ask questions.
Suansing did not give in to Tiangco’s demand, pointing out that she was not even the committee’s chairperson in the 19th Congress and that the panel will have to “consider” his request first. She took note of the request, saying she will also have to look into the records first.
“This representation was not the appropriations chair at the time. Given that we’ve now crossed over to the 20th Congress, we would need to consider that request,” she told Tiangco.
Rep. Zaldy Co (PL, Ako Bicol) headed the appropriations panel in the 19th Congress and he was eventually replaced by then panel senior vice chair Marikina Rep. Stella Quimbo, who acted as OIC after Co resigned.
Tiangco said that after the 2025 budget was approved in the bicameral level, one district was allocated P20.999 billion in the 2025 General Appropriations Act (GAA), which was P18.469 billion more than P2.53 that the Executive had proposed in the National Expenditure Program (NEP).
Tiangco, an independent, said another district was allocated P20.795 billion, which was P19.286 billion more than the P1.508 billion earmarked in the NEP.
He said that the small committee formed by the House in the 19th Congress to accept or reject individual amendments was supposedly responsible for inserting P13 billion in the budget in one of the two districts, and P14 billion in the other one.
The Navotas lawmaker also said that in the bicameral level, where congressmen and senators reconciled the differences in their versions of the budget, the two districts were given between P4 billion to P5 billion each.
Tiangco said it was unacceptable for the panel not to accede to his request because the House Rules dictate that all reports be archived.
“Do I have to read the Rules again regarding archives of all documents? So ang daming (there are many) violations, Madam Chair. Walang record, ‘di binigay (There’s no record). Ngayon (Now), it’s not readily available, walang (there’s no record) sa (in the) archives,” he said.
Suansing said Tiangco’s request is an internal matter that may be taken up by the committee separately and not during the DBCC budget briefing, but Tiangco said the House will not be able to scrutinize the proposed 2026 budget without addressing the matter.
Suansing said the small committee, which the House leadership has already abolished, has no separate report because its output already became part of the mother committee’s report which is the version of the budget approved by the House last year.
Tiangco insisted that no committee is exempted from releasing a committee report based on Sec. 39 of Rule 9 of House Rules but Suansing said the small panel was already “subsumed within the Committee on Appropriations and it is the Committee on Appropriations that is required to submit a committee report.”
“Now, the output of the Committee on Appropriations once it is elevated to the plenary, is the HGAB (House version of the General Appropriations Bill). So there’s no other committee report that needs to be furnished by the committee on appropriations apart from the HGAB itself,” she said, adding that the rule Tiangco cited pertains to standing committees and not the small panel.
She advised Tiangco to just compare the original version of the 2025 GAB to the House-approved version to find out who made the amendments, but Tiangco said doing so is almost impossible because the GAB is 7,000 pages, adding that a summary of amendments should at least be released similar to the practice of the bicameral panel.
Suansing said that in place of the small committee, a subcommittee under the appropriations committee, will be formed to review proposed amendments and no changes will be entertained in the plenary anymore once the GAB is approved on second reading.
OBSERVERS
Pursuant to the reforms that the House leadership has adopted to make the budget process more transparent and inclusive, the House has issued Memorandum Circular No. 20-002, signed by House Secretary General Reginald Velasco,
creating the Task Force on People’s Participation (TFPP) to serve as the primary liaison between the House Secretariat and civil society organizations (CSOs).
The memorandum also included the interim guidelines on allowing CSOs to participate in the review of the NEP.
The memo gives flesh to House Resolution (HR) No. 94, which allows CSOs to participate in the budget process as “third-party observers.”
Also yesterday, Speaker Martin Romualdez welcomed the accredited CSOs to an orientation on the national budget process ahead of the start of budget deliberations.
The orientation, conducted by Dr. Romulo Emmanuel Miral Jr., head of the Congressional Policy and Budget Research Department (CPBRD), briefed CSO representatives on the guidelines for their participation as non-voting observers in the crafting and oversight of the P6.793-trillion 2026 national budget.
“Every peso in the budget must be truly responsive to the needs of our people and our country,” the Speaker said. “By opening the process to civil society, we are showing that nothing is hidden and that the people themselves have a voice in shaping where their taxes will go.”
OPEN BICAM
Rep. Jose Manuel Diokno (PL, Akbayan) urged the House to approve his group’s Joint Resolution No. 2 seeking to open bicameral conference committee deliberations to the public for transparency.
“What better time to pass this resolution than now, as Congress prepares to deliberate on the national budget, the most important piece of legislation each year,” Diokno said.
Diokno urged the House to follow the Senate’s lead after it unanimously adopted Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 4, which aims to establish transparency and accountability mechanisms in the national budget process.
The Speaker vowed that the House will do its constitutional duty of scrutinizing the budget “but we will do so not as adversaries, but as allies united by a shared purpose.”
“For at the end of the day, at the heart of our collaboration lies a common goal: to deliver a better, more dignified life for every Filipino family,” he said.
The House leader also likened the process to the budgeting system in a Filipino household. “Just as every F ilipino household plans its budget with care, we too must ensure that each peso serves a meaningful purpose,” he said.
