THE leaders of various political parties in the House of Representatives yesterday dropped their plan to remand to Malacañang the proposed P6.793 trillion national budget for 2026 after the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) and the new leadership of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) vowed to address the billions of pesos worth of insertions that they earlier said were allegedly made at the level of the Executive department.
Palawan Rep. Jose Alvarez of the Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC) said their group decided to abort the plan after Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman and Public Works Secretary Vince Dizon on Wednesday night separately called congressmen who wanted to return the 2026 National Expenditure Program (NEP) to Malacañang.
Alvarez, a vice chairman of the House Committee on Appropriations, said the two Cabinet officials vowed to personally address the questionable entries in the budget so that the budget hearings will not be stalled.
“It will not be returned for now. They pleaded that the corrections will be made here so that time won’t run out,” Alvarez told reporters in Filipino. “And we gave them 10 days to do it.”
He said congressmen are willing to work overtime to ensure that the budget will be approved on time. “It remains on track. If we need to extend working hours, we’re ready to work here and there’s no problem,” he also said.
Deputy Speaker Ronaldo Puno of Antipolo City said Speaker Martin Romualdez also appealed to party heads to just allow the matter to be addressed by the House appropriations panel when it tackles the proposed budget of the DPWH and other departments that have questionable items in their proposed spending program.
“He (Romualdez) told us instead of returning everything, we can just point it out to the DPWH per district (during the budget hearing). That would take two days, but you (should) point out every single problem that every single district has. We agreed,” Puno told dzBB radio in an interview.
Puno, chair of the National Unity Party (NUP) which is the second largest party at the House, said the Speaker also told their group that there are other agencies that do not have erroneous entries in the budget proposals, like the Commission on Elections (Comelec) and the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD).
House leaders on Wednesday night called on Romualdez to return the NEP to Malacañang, which he said was “mangled” at the Executive level and contained questionable allocations.
They also urged his House colleagues to stop participating in the budget hearings amid allegations that congressmen were the ones who made the insertions in the 2025 national budget during the bicameral budget deliberations last year.
They particularly pointed to the “questionable” and “erroneous” items in the 2026 NEP, which was prepared by the Executive led by the DBM, such as new entries for projects that were already completed.
The House leaders said their review uncovered “serious and systemic” anomalies in the preparation of the 2026 NEP, particularly in the budget proposals of the DPWH, Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG), Philippine National Police (PNP), and Department of Agriculture (DA).
Last Friday, Marikina City Rep. Marcelino Teodoro said that completed infrastructure projects in his district are still being funded a fresh P100 million under the 2026 NEP.
He particularly cited a slope protection project in Balanti Creek in Barangay Sto. Niño, which, despite having been completed in 2023, is again in the 2026 NEP under flood mitigation programs.
Puno has said congressmen do not know how to proceed with the budget deliberations because they will be accused of wrongdoing once again if they introduce amendments to the budget.
House spokesman Princess Abante said the leadership remains confident that it will be able to pass the General Appropriations Bill (GAB) on schedule although she admitted that the review will be tedious because of the discoveries of questionable items.
“But it appears that the committee is still confident that they can still meet the timeline being looked at by the House to approve the GAB,” she told a press conference.
Abante also said that while party leaders have decided to step back on their plan to have the budget returned to the DBM, they remain unanimous in their stand that the House should not again take the blame for the congressional insertions in the 2026 NEP.
“Still, their (House leaders) position on the issues they raised, that it should be the DBM making the corrections, not Congress,” she said.
‘BUDGET 101’
Sen. Panfilo Lacson said the House cannot return the NEP back to Malacañang since it is only a budget proposal, not an enrolled bill.
He said the DPWH can just submit corrected copies of the budget proposal to the DBM, which will in turn submit them to the House.
“Budget 101: Congress cannot return the NEP to Malacañang since it is only a budget proposal, not an enrolled bill for approval or line-item veto by the President. However, the DPWH, through the DBM, may submit errata sheets, but it is up to Congress to adopt such errata or not,” Lacson said in a post on X.
Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian, chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance, said he understands the concerns of the House but said the Senate wants the budget bill to be signed before the end of the year.
“The approval of the 2026 budget remains a top priority of the Senate. We understand the concerns raised by House leaders, however, the Senate will proceed with budget briefings to avoid delays in the budgeting process,” Gatchalian said in a statement.
CABINET REVIEW
Palace Press Officer Claire Castro said government agencies should start reviewing their budget proposals for 2026 amid reports of insertions and the presence of previously completed projects in the 2026 spending program.
“Right now we just need to look, we can’t yet say that there are really anomalies inserted…. If there are other agencies (with questionable appropriations), that would be the similar order of the President),” Castro said.
P8 BILLION FOR GUNS
While the House will no longer return the budget to the Palace, lawmakers vowed to investigate the questionable items in the budget, particularly the reports of a proposed P8 billion firearms purchase which former PNP chief Nicolas Torre III has said he refused to sign.
Manila Rep. Benny Abante said Torre’s refusal to sign the procurement, which was allegedly pushed for Adrian Sanares, a son of DILG Usec. Nestor Sanares, a retired general, will be looked into by the Committee on Public Order and Safety chaired by Manila Rep. Rolando Valeriano.
In a letter to Valeriano last Wednesday, Abante said the matter must be investigated because it was allegedly the reason why Torre was removed as PNP chief.
“I write to formally request for the House Committee on Public Order and Safety to initiate a formal investigation on the attempted insertion of P8 billion in the PNP budget for 2026 for the purchase of guns and ammunitions in violation of the procurement law, and RA No. 6975, as amended by RA No. 8551,” Abante stated in his request.
Puno earlier said lawmakers scoured the budget books but found no trace of the allocation in either the 2025 or 2026 budgets.
Abante cited a letter from the PNP addressed to Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla, asking for the inclusion of P8 billion in the 2026 budget “specifically for the procurement of 80,000 units of standardized caliber 5.56 mm basic assault rifles.” He said the matter has been circulating online.
“Why is a budget insertion request being facilitated by the son of an undersecretary of the agency that would approve such a request?” he said in the letter. “What specific law or rule did PNP chief Torre violate that led to his relief/removal?”
The Manila lawmaker also cited the scale of the proposed firearms acquisition, noting that P8 billion for 80,000 units translated to P100,000 per unit.
“Also, the amount requested for the intended purchase of guns is quite staggering. Php8 billion for 80,000 units is Php100,000 per unit. What is now the status of this requested budget insertion?” Abante said.
P1 BILLION FOR ‘BEAUTIFICATION’
Another insertion under question is the proposed P1 billion for the “beautification” of Department of Health (DOH) offices, which Deputy Speaker Janette Garin of Iloilo said should have been allocated for hospitals and rural health units (RHUs).
The former health secretary said such misallocation “shows how flawed budget items waste the time of Congress and threaten the administration’s push for zero balance billing in government hospitals.”
She said that while President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has made it clear that he wants zero balance billing for patients and public hospitals are in need of more funds, the DBM had failed to flag a P1 billion budget for the improvement and beautification of DOH offices.
She said the DBM failed to check agency submissions before forwarding them to Congress.
Garin also stressed that questionable entries “undermine the President’s priorities and unfairly pin blame on Congress.” “In other words, Congress is taking the blame for the failures in the preparation of the budget,” she said in Filipino.
MISING IN ACTION
Rep. Zaldy Co (PL, Ako Bicol), who chaired the appropriations committee in the 19th Congress, has been silent in the past weeks even if he is one of the personalities at the center of the controversy hounding this year’s national budget.
The younger Abante confirmed that Co is in the United States purportedly for medical treatment.
“Based on my initial inquiry before the Office of the House Secretary General (Reginald Velasco), he (Co) is currently out of the country,” Abante said. “I understand he is in the United States for medical treatment, with appropriate travel documents.”
Navotas Rep. Tobias Tiangco said Co is the only person who can explain the P13.803 billion insertion in the 2025 General Appropriations Act (GAA), which was made in the bicameral level.
Co, whose name has been dragged into the flood control controversy for allegedly being one of the founders of Sunwest Construction, which is one of the Top 15 contractors identified by the President, has been silent on the issue. – With Raymond Africa and Jocelyn Reyes
