OVP, Akap among thorny items in bicam budget talks
The bicameral congressional committee set to fine-tune the national budget for 2025 on Wednesday moved to create a technical working group (TWG) that would hammer out the differences between the Senate and the House versions of the 2025 General Appropriations Bill (GAB), a move that again keeps deliberations away from public scrutiny amid calls to open these discussions to the public.
On Thursday, the 12 senators and ranking House leaders met at the Sheraton Hotel in Manila to convene their first hearing on the proposed budget.
Among the most contentious differences in their GAB versions are the Senate’s decision to cut P39 billion of the funds for the House-initiated Ayuda sa Kapos ang Kita Program (Akap), and the House’s decision to slash P1.3 billion from the budget of the Office of the Vice President (OVP).
The leaders of both panels—Senate finance committee chair Sen. Grace Poe and House appropriations chair AKO Bicol Rep. Elizaldy Co—expressed hopes that they could mutually arrive at a budget that could improve the lives of Filipinos.
“Let’s not forget, this is also a time for cooperation and compromise,” Poe said in her opening remarks. “My only plea is for us to not take ourselves too seriously. If the discussions get too heated, then let’s take coffee breaks to settle our differences.”
“Let us find ways to reconcile our differences and ensure that our efforts align with the programs and priorities of the present administration,” Co added.
Public scrutiny
Earlier this week, the civil society group Taumbayan Ayaw sa Magnanakaw at Abusado Network Alliance (Tama Na) challenged Congress to open the bicam discussions to the public.
The bicam conference is often called the “third congress” as it has the power to realign billions of pesos of public funds and insert major amendments to the GAB, often away from the public eye.
This was in contrast to the committee and plenary level deliberations which are open to the public both on-site and online.
The alliance said they were particularly interested in how the bicam would address issues regarding the billions of confidential funds in various agencies, the ballooning of unprogrammed funds, and the budgets of the OVP and the Department of Public Works and Highways, among others.
“We believe this should not be done in closed-door sessions and the public has the right to be informed about how legislators are finalizing the proposed budget. The people should be able to determine the changes made by Congress in the budget and whether the insertion or deletion of particular fund items is in the nation’s best interest,” the alliance argued.
Thorny differences
In an interview, Poe said the TWG would likely start in two days and they would be the ones to thresh out these differences.
“That’s where we’ll reconcile the differences, and as you know there are only a few,” she noted.
The House leadership, including Speaker Martin Romualdez, had earlier said they would fight to make sure the Akap budget—which Sen. Imee Marcos realigned to another social program, the Assistance to Individuals In Crisis Situations—is restored in the bicam.
Under Akap, at least 12 million households under the poverty threshold receive P3,000 to P5,000, but it was criticized when Marcos alleged that the program was being used to bribe people to sign a signature campaign to amend the 1987 Constitution.
Restoration bid
Senators allied with Vice President Sara Duterte, meanwhile, also indicated that they were interested in restoring part of the budget cut to the OVP to allow it to continue its operations. The House leadership slashed the OVP allocation after Duterte refused to answer lawmakers’ questions about how she spent her previous budgets, specifically her confidential funds.
While the bicam lawmakers did not mention these during the meeting, Co, in his opening speech, did allude to the need to continue “socioeconomic programs and infrastructure investments [that] will profoundly impact every Filipino battling inflation.”
