SEN. Grace Poe yesterday said the House of Representatives is expected to transmit to the Senate its version of the proposed 2025 national budget by October 25, which would give sufficient time for senators to review the appropriations bill.

“Based on the schedule agreed with the House, the transmittal of the General Appropriations Bill (GAB) is on October 25,” Poe said in a message to the media.

The House approved the proposed P6.352 trillion budget for next year on Wednesday night before Congress adjourned for a break.

Poe, chairperson of the Committee on Finance, said the Senate is on track in its schedule of hearing the budget briefings of government agencies and sees no problem to the passage of the budget measure before the year ends.

“The hearing in the Senate will continue until October 18. Only after that and the transmittal of the GAB can we start drafting the committee report in the Senate,” she said.

Poe said she is ready to sponsor the budget bill before the plenary when regular sessions resume on November 4.

“We are actually ahead of schedule with hearings. Assuming all vice chairs will submit their committee reports on time, I will be ready to sponsor by then,” she said.

Senate President Francis Escudero earlier said that is up to Poe to defend the Office of the Vice President’s budget since the Senate has no issue with it.

“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? As for the budget, that’s all that was discussed. 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 will be the one defending the budget and not the Vice President,” Escudero said.

The House slashed the OVP’s proposed budget by P1.29 billion and approved on P733 million for its funding next year. The cut amount was realigned to socio-economic programs of the Department of Social Welfare and Development and the Department of Health.

The move came after Vice President Sara Duterte refused to answer questions from the lawmakers in relation to how her office spent its 2023 budget. She likewise skipped the House plenary deliberations, saying the lawmakers can do whatever they want with her office’s budget.