More budget readjustments: Now it’s for PNP
President Marcos on Tuesday ordered the restoration of the original funding for the Philippine National Police’s information technology (IT) program and the return of the additional intelligence funds of the police force.
In a press briefing in Malacañang, Secretary Jonvic Remulla of the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) disclosed that various PNP IT projects incurred significant budget cuts in the 2025 General Appropriations Act (GAA).
These included the enhancement of the National Police clearance system, which saw its budget reduced to P232 million from P600 million in the National Expenditure Program (NEP); the establishment of the Safe Camp Security System, which was cut to P161 million from P472 million, and the PNP drug-related data integration and generation system, which had its funding slashed to P196 million from P533 million.
Remulla said that while these vital IT programs were being underfunded, nearly P1 billion was allocated for the purchase of all-terrain amphibious vehicles for the Bicol Region, and an additional P500 million was added to the PNP’s intelligence fund.
The President instructed Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman to revert the PNP’s IT program budget to its original amount and eliminate the additional P500 million allocated to the intelligence fund.
“As instructed by the President, the budget for IT will be reverted while the P500-million intelligence fund in the GAA will be removed. So, return to the original budget,” Remulla said.
Emergency hotline
The reversion of the budget cuts and the removal of the intelligence fund will free up funds that will be reallocated to support the integration and enhancement of the 911 emergency hotline system, Remulla noted.
The DILG chief said he pushed for the restoration of the funding for the Integrated National 911 System as his priority program, which brings together all of PNP’s reforms on law enforcement.
“Our 911 will have the integration from caller to call center to dispatch, including the body cameras for police officers and first responders, as well as geo-locating devices for police cars,” he said.
The 911 system will also be “language-specific,” with operators responding in the native regional languages, Remulla said.
The system will also allow the sending of hyperlinks to live video which may be viewed in real time on applications like WhatsApp.
“Viewers with the hyperlink can see what is going on during an emergency, and on the spot a doctor or police officer may be dispatched online who can give advice on what needs to be done,” he said.
More restorations coming
After noting that the 2025 GAA was “suboptimal,” the President earlier directed government agencies to review their budgets and check if funding for their priority projects this year have been cut, given the big difference between the original spending plan submitted by Malacañang to Congress and the final 2025 GAA.
He said he would sit down with each department to find out what happened to their budgets to ensure that the government’s focus remains on programs and projects critical to the administration’s socioeconomic program.
Last week, the President ordered the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) to restore the P400-million branding budget of the Department of Tourism, noting that the Philippines could not afford to lose the momentum it already has in the international scene.
Marcos signed into law the P6.326-trillion GAA for 2025 last Dec. 30.
Blanks not possible
In Congress, several senators on Tuesday rejected former President Rodrigo Duterte’s allegation that the signed bicameral conference committee report on the budget for 2025 contained blank entries.
“I don’t think (that’s possible),” said Senate President Pro Tempore Jinggoy Estrada, one of the lawmakers who signed the budget document on Dec. 11, 2024.
Opposition Sen. Risa Hontiveros, who refused to sign the bicam report after voting against the budget measure, also rejected Duterte’s claim.
“I think we did our job. That’s why I will not believe what Duterte is saying,” Hontiveros said in Filipino.
Sen. Joel Villanueva, also a member of the Senate panel during the bicam meetings, said he did not notice any spending item that did not specify the amount allotted to it.
“Secondly, it’s kind of weird every time I hear people talking about the constitutionality of such a committee report because when you (raise the issue of) constitutionality of a measure, it should be (directed at) the law itself, not the (committee) report,” the senator noted.
Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian, vice chair of the Senate finance panel, added that the sum of the budget items would not tally if the document had entries with no indicated amounts.
“As for me and my team, we did not see blank entries because the (sum of the amounts) will not be balanced,” he said. —WITH REPORTS FROM MARLON RAMOS AND PNA
