If it is any indication that the 2025 General Appropriations Act (GAA) badly mangled this year’s National Expenditure Program (NEP), President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. (PBBM) convened another budget meeting at Malacañan Palace last Monday (Jan. 13). On his first working day after the New Year, PBBM summoned to Malacañang Department of Budget and Management (DBM) Secretary Amenah Pangandaman for a briefing on the revisions done on the 2025 GAA.
The Chief Executive initially went through the voluminous copies of the printed 2025 budget bill with a fine-toothed comb before he signed it into law on Dec. 30 last year. The President was assisted by Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin and the economic team led by Pangandaman. They went over the constitutional, legal and socio-economic issues and controversies arising from the “insertions” and realignments that got into the Congress-approved 2025 budget bill.
At the end of this initial Palace vetting process, PBBM vetoed a whopping P194 billion from the Congress-approved 2025 budget that consisted mainly of new budget items that were not in the President’s NEP. From P6.352 trillion, the 2025 budget law was reduced a bit to P6.326 trillion. The bulk of vetoed items came from new items “inserted” in the 2025 GAA for the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), while the Department of Transportation (DOTr) suffered the biggest cut.
Then again last Tuesday (Jan. 7), PBBM sat down with his entire Cabinet and tasked Pangandaman to explain the impact of the Congress-approved budget to their respective departments and agencies. They compared for the nth time the original submission to the 19th Congress of the NEP against the amendments done by lawmakers in the 2025 GAA.
At our Kapihan sa Manila Bay last Wednesday (Jan. 8), Pangandaman explained some of the details pertaining to the “insertions” and realignments done in the 2025 GAA. The DBM chief pointed to the particular vetoed budget items that were those found inconsistent with the eight-point socio-economic agenda of the Marcos administration.
So PBBM reviewed and went over so many times the fine print before and after he signed the 2025 GAA.
Pangandaman disclosed to us PBBM instructed the heads of affected government agencies to reexamine the administration’s initiatives contained in the NEP but were defunded by Congress. The President, she explained, wanted agencies to focus on items critical to the socio-economic programs and restore the budget for critical projects that were not given funding by Congress.
“We have to reexamine so that the programs that we wanted – that we put in the NEP – can somehow be restored,” PBBM was quoted in the official Palace statement after the 18th Cabinet meeting at Malacañang. “For the rest of the departments, I need you to give me the priorities – the things that we prioritized in the NEP that were removed in terms of budgeting, in terms of appropriations,” the President supposedly stressed.
Now in the middle of his six-year term, PBBM is obviously in catch-up mode. Thus, the Chief Executive apparently would not want the administration’s programs taken in different directions other than ones he himself had set.
After all these budget reviews were done, the line-item vetoes were traced to the amendments done at the bicameral conference committee (bicam). Dubbed as the “third” Congress, the bicam consolidated the differing provisions of the versions of the 2025 budget bill separately approved by the Senate and the House of Representatives. So the bicam actually crafted the final version of the 2025 GAA.
Composed of an equal number of 12 senators and 12 House members, the bicam for the 2025 GAA was jointly headed by Sen. Grace Poe as chairperson of the Senate finance committee and Ako Bicol party-list Rep. Zaldy Co, as chairman of the House appropriations committee.
Coming back from their month-long Christmas break, Co found himself removed as House appropriations committee chairman. When they resumed session last Monday, no less than presidential son, deputy House majority leader Ilocos Norte Rep. Sandro Marcos, presented a motion “declaring vacant” the chairmanship of the powerful House appropriations committee.
Mentored on the legislative process by then House majority leader and now Speaker Martin Romualdez, the young Ilocos Norte congressman dealt the blow on Co’s fall from grace without much drama or fanfare. Hearing no objection from the floor to the motion of the President’s first-born son, the Speaker banged the gavel to signal the entire House in session approved the motion declaring “vacant” Co’s post.
Co quickly sought to clarify though that he was not removed from the most coveted House committee chairmanship. According to Co, he supposedly left his post on his own volition “with a heavy heart.” His resignation, he added, was “driven by pressing health concerns” that took its toll, given the demanding role he had to play these past three years.
After all, he cited, he headed this congressional body since June 2022. “I have always served at the pleasure of the majority. I am deeply honored to have been entrusted with the immense responsibility of steering the nation’s budget in service of the House of the people and the constituents we represent,” Co claimed. He extended his “heartfelt gratitude” to his House colleagues for “graciously accepting my decision to step down.”
But there was not even a shedding of crocodile tears from Rep. Co’s fellow House members.
The next day, in fact, the House leadership designated Marikina City Rep. Stella Quimbo as “acting” chairperson of the House appropriations committee. Billed as one of the resident economists of the 19th Congress, Quimbo is one of the senior vice chairpersons of Co in the same committee that has no more budget bill-related matters to take up. She is one of the lawmakers running in the May 12 national and local elections. Congress goes on recess on Feb. 7 for the campaign period.
While the legislative body has the power of the purse, our Constitution though allows the Chief Executive to overhaul the Congress-approved budget without increasing or restoring cuts.