THE Senate received yesterday afternoon the version of the 2025 General Appropriations Bill (GAB) that was approved by the House of Representatives last September 25 before Congress went on recess.
House secretary general Reginald Velasco, in a letter to Senate President Francis Escudero, said the House provided 35 copies of House Bill No. 10800, or the 2025 GAB, which contains the government’s spending plan for January 1 to December 31 next year.
Copies of the bill were received by the Senate’s Legislative Bills and Index department.
The transmittal of the 2025 national budget came a day early. Sen. Grace Poe, chairperson of the Committee on Finance, has previously said the House has committed to send the measure on October 25.
Senate President Francis Escudero has earlier urged the House to transmit the budget bill earlier than October 25 to give senators time to scrutinize it before the plenary discussions.
Poe said she is ready to sponsor the budget bill in the Senate plenary when regular sessions resume on November 4.
One of the controversial items in the proposed P6.352 trillion national budget is the allocation of the Office of the Vice President, which was slashed by the House from P2.037 billion to P733 million.
Lawmakers from the lower house cut the OVP budget after Vice President Sara Duterte refused to attend committee and plenary deliberations on her office’s budget request for next year.
Escudero it is up to Poe to defend the OVP budget on the floor.
“Actually, what we would be taking up is what to do with the proposal of the House with respect to the OVP budget. Do we agree, do we add or do we subtract?…But the issues behind that are over with the committee because it is already a member of the Senate who is defending the budget. In this case, Sen. Grace Poe will be the one defending the budget and not the Vice President,” he said.
Sen. Imee Marcos said she will push for full transparency when the bicameral conference committee convenes to reconcile the disagreeing provisions of the measure to avoid last-minute insertions.