SENATE President Juan Miguel Zubiri yesterday said senators are set to ratify today the reconciled version of the proposed P5.768 trillion national budget of the Marcos administration for next year.
Zubiri said the ratification of the 2024 General Appropriations Act (GAA) will be made after a final meeting of the members of the bicameral conference committee reconciling the differing provisions of the spending bill, which is scheduled this morning at the Makati Shangri-la Hotel in Makati City.
The group of lawmakers first met last November 30 at the Makati Golf and Country, also in Makati City.
Lawmakers are eyeing to transmit to Malacañang this week the ratified version of the 2024 national budget before Congress goes on break for the holiday season. They are looking at having it signed by President Marcos Jr. before the end of the year.
Zubiri did not give details on the final provisions of the 2024 GAA to be ratified today, but Sen. Juan Edgardo Angara, chairperson of the Senate Committee on Finance, has earlier said that senators have agreed to adopt the decision of the House of Representatives to realign the confidential and intelligence funds (CIFs) of civilian offices to security agencies which are at the forefront in protecting the country’s sovereignty, especially amid the territorial dispute involving China over the West Philippine Sea.
Angara has assured that the realigned or removed CIFs will not be restored in the final version of the budget measure.
“By and large we adopted the House version wherein they realigned the confidential funds to security agencies which came from civilian agencies,” Angara earlier said.
Sen. Joseph Victor Ejercito, during the first bicameral meet, has also said that the Senate will be consistent in giving CIFs to agencies like the Department of National Defense, PNP, AFP, Department of Justice, Philippine Coast Guad, and other agencies involved in intelligence works.
Under Malacañang’s proposed 2024 spending bill, some 28 agencies requested for CIFs in their respective budgets for next year, including the Office of the Vice President (P500 million) and the Department of Education (P150 million), which is headed by Vice President Sara Duterte.
Duterte, during the second day of the plenary debates for her offices’ budget said she will no longer pursue the CF’s since “it seemed to be divisive.”
Angara also earlier said that the CIFs of the Office of the President was “unchanged” in the bicam even as Senate minority leader Aquilino Pimentel III recommended the removal of its intelligence funds, and reduction of CFs.
The government has proposed a P10.707 billion budget for CIFs in 2024, of which P4.5 billion will go to the Office of the President (P2.250 million for CFs and P2.310 for intelligence funds).
