No malice in statement, Bersamin tells House at OP budget hearing
Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin clarified to lawmakers on Monday that his criticism of the House of Representatives was only meant to stress the separation of powers between the legislative and the executive branches.
Facing the House committee on appropriations during its deliberations on the proposed 2026 budget of the Office of the President (OP), Bersamin was asked by Minority Leader Marcelino Libanan about his statements over the weekend, in which he accused some lawmakers of trying to pin the blame for their “corruption and failures in the budget process” on the executive branch.
Libanan was supposed to move for the termination of deliberations on the OP’s budget, but instead, he asked that Bersamin address questions on the matter first.
“As I said, there’s a tradition in the House that we give institutional and parliamentary courtesy to the Office of the President. However […], there are pressing issues that need to be clarified, it’s important that the people be enlightened on these,” Libanan said.
In response, Bersamin said that his statement was a consensus of the Cabinet, adding that they just wanted to “stress” institutional separation from the House.
“Thank you, Mr. Minority Leader, for [bringing] this up. It’s the elephant in the room, but we came here in good faith. We just would like to emphasize that any part of that statement is our statement. We will not shirk from that or avoid the impact,” Bersamin said.
Cabinet consensus
“But we would like to emphasize today that that statement was more to stress our institutional separation from the House of Representatives—some of whose members, and I hope it is not the majority—have expressed some statements that we in the Cabinet considered to be against the institutional separation of powers […] So we came up with that statement, it was a consensus of the cabinet,” he added.
In a strongly worded statement on Saturday, Bersamin called out what he called “recent spins” by certain House lawmakers, “who are thereby attempting to shift the blame for their own corruption and failures onto the executive branch.”
“The members of the Cabinet would not tolerate any attack on the integrity and reputation of the executive branch and any effort to hold the budget process hostage by political theatrics,” he said.
Separation of powers
“All our investigations into the anomalies will be futile if the sources of corruption remain unchecked. Hence, we urge the House of Representatives to heed the demand of the people for full accountability: Clean your house first!” Bersamin added.
In front of lawmakers on Monday, he said there was no malice in his statement.
“It was more to emphasize our constitutional position and separation, and to elicit cooperation and support from the House of Representatives, more than any other. We do not intend that to rile up the tension between our departments as we have emphasized at the opening statement. We come here seeking your support for our institutional budget,” Bersamin said.
“So I think that is all that I can say at this time. There is nothing intended that is malicious or to malign any [member of the] House of Representative,” he added.
In his statement, Bersamin did not elaborate on what event or who among the lawmakers prompted him to make a strong statement, but last Wednesday, House party leaders led by Deputy Speaker and Antipolo Rep. Ronaldo Puno suggested that the National Expenditure Program be sent back to the Department of Budget and Management due to several problems.
This was after they discovered that problems afflicting the proposed 2026 budget of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), particularly funding requests for already completed projects—were present in other government agencies as well.
The plan was later dropped after DPWH and the Department of Budget and Management vowed to fix the issue.
After questioning Bersamin, Libanan moved to terminate the deliberations on the OP budget despite the objections of ACT Teachers Rep. Antonio Tinio, Kabataan Rep. Renee Co and Mamamayang Liberal Rep. Leila de Lima, who also wanted to ask questions.
A total of 56 committee members eventually voted in favor of the motion to terminate the budget deliberations, with only five objecting.
