Unprogrammed funds: Koko seeks SC intervention

MANILA, Philippines — Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel III is preparing to challenge before the Supreme Court the constitutionality of the bicameral conference committee’s move to increase to P531.6 billion the unprogrammed funds in the 2025 national budget.

Pimentel pointed out that the Constitution prohibits Congress from increasing the appropriations as recommended by the executive.

“Very simple interpretation – that when the word ‘appropriations’ is used, it does not distinguish between programmed and unprogrammed appropriations,” Pimentel said during plenary deliberations on the budget on Wednesday.

“Unfortunately, the practice of increasing the unprogrammed appropriations in the final version of the national budget, over and above the level of the unprogrammed appropriations recommended by the President in the President’s budget, or called the NEP, is one of the issues I have raised before the Supreme Court,” he said.

“And we are repeating the said practice in our plan for the 2025 budget… the increase is still P373 billion,” he added.

But Sen. Grace Poe said the issue of the unprogrammed funds was actually discussed with the technical working group. “What we have decided is that we have limited resources, but there are so many programs that we would like to fund. And unfortunately, we don’t have the immediate amount on hand, so there’s still certain projects that will be categorized in the unfunded, unprogrammed appropriations,” she said.

“From this year 2024 which was P737 billion, now we are at 531 billion. There is obviously a long way to go when it comes to having more fiscal discipline. But this is the reality,” Poe explained.

Poe clarified the unprogrammed amount is really not part of the total amount in the bicam report or in the budget proposed. “That’s why it’s called unprogrammed, it’s unfunded. But the President has the power to appropriate for the unprogrammed funds based on certain criteria,” she pointed out.

“First of all, it has to come from a source, for example, extra collections from the government, from GOCC dividends, extra collections from the BIR, etc., or even loan proceeds,” she added.