Now Reading
Marcos, aides still fixing ‘suboptimal’ nat’l budget
Dark Light

Marcos, aides still fixing ‘suboptimal’ nat’l budget

Avatar

Following a series of meetings with officials on the 2025 General Appropriations Act (GAA), President Marcos on Friday said the government was working to make an “optimal” budget out of the P6.236-trillion national spending program to fund projects and activities that would address the country’s urgent needs.

In an interview in Burauen, Leyte, the President admitted that the 2025 GAA was “suboptimal” when it was passed by Congress due to reductions in appropriations for basic services, such as social welfare, education and health.

“But we are remedying that situation,” Mr. Marcos told Malacañang reporters. “We are working to make it optimal once again.”

He said the government was reviewing the proposed funding in the National Expenditure Program (NEP) against the approved appropriations in the 2025 GAA to identify which projects suffered a reduction in allocation or did not receive funding at all and to augment them with money from savings.

Department reviews

Over the past week, the President met officials of the Department of Agriculture, Department of Health, Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), Department of Information and Communications Technology, Department of Tourism, and Department of Education (DepEd) to tackle their reviews of their respective budgets.

“What we are doing is to look for savings so that we can restore the funds for programs in the NEP that did not receive or got little funding. Like for education, health, housing, and tourism,” Mr. Marcos said.

In recent days, Malacañang issued several statements quoting the President ordering officials to find ways to fund projects that needed augmentation, while assuring that funds were available for those projects.

In December last year, the President vetoed P194.3 billion in line items in the budget for the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) as well as unprogrammed appropriations because these were “not consistent with our programmed priorities.”

This brought the initially proposed P6.523-trillion national budget for this year down to P6.236 trillion.

Much criticized

The version of the budget that emerged from the bicameral conference committee was much criticized for “unconstitutional” provisions, such as the DPWH’s bloated P1.1-trillion budget that exceeded DepEd’s P737-billion funding, the reduction in funding for DSWD, which lost P86 billion, and the P10-billion cut in DepEd’s computerization program.

One of the heavily criticized items was the zero subsidy for indigent and elderly nonpaying members of the Philippine Health Insurance Corp., although the President assured the public that the state health insurer had enough reserve funds which could even expand its health-care coverage for Filipinos.

The Chief Executive sat down with DepEd officials on Thursday in Malacañang and pushed for “substantial allocations” for the agency’s key programs. DepEd had warned that its smaller budget may worsen the shortage of teachers in the country.

“We have to be able to show that education is the priority,” Mr. Marcos said.

Malacañang said Congress approved a P737-billion budget for DepEd, instead of the proposed P748 billion under the NEP.

The Palace said the budget slash also reduced allocations for the creation of new school personnel positions, the Basic Education Facilities Fund (BEFF), and the implementation of the DepEd computerization program.

See Also

Teacher shortage

DepEd informed the President that the lower funding for new school personnel positions will “exacerbate the teacher shortage.” It added that past years’ requirements to create new positions were only partially addressed and would further compromise the delivery of quality education.

The 2025 GAA showed that the creation of new school personnel posts was allocated P32.312 billion, lower than the P34.004 billion sought in the NEP.

DepEd’s computerization program had an original budget of P12.379 billion, but Congress only approved P2.43 billion for the program. This drastic cut would affect the delivery of much-needed learning and teaching tools like laptops, smart TVs, and satellite-based internet connection.

DepEd said it was forced to cancel P4 billion out of P7 billion worth of items in its computerization program that already underwent early preliminary procurement processes.

Tesda plan

On the other hand, the BEFF was allocated P28.056 billion in the enacted national budget for this year—lower than the P29.308 billion proposed in the NEP. DepEd said this would affect the construction of school buildings.

During Thursday’s meeting, Mr. Marcos agreed with the plan of the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (Tesda) to study various options to finance its unfunded programs.

Although Tesda’s budget went up to P20.73 billion in the 2025 GAA from the P18.5 billion proposed in the NEP, the creation of Enterprise-based Training Offices and a new office for the Negros Island Region were not funded.


© The Philippine Daily Inquirer, Inc.
All Rights Reserved.

Scroll To Top