DSWD’s ‘ayuda’ program to get P32B more in 2026
The Assistance to Individuals in Crisis Situations (AICS), a controversial cash aid for families experiencing emergencies, will get P32.06 billion in 2026 if the first proposed realignment made by the House of Representatives’ budget amendments review subcommittee pushes through.
At Monday’s hearing of the subpanel of the House appropriations committee, Minority Leader Marcelino Libanan made the proposal to augment the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) allocation for AICS.
Originally, the DSWD requested a P37.68-billion allocation for 2026, but what was approved in the 2026 National Expenditure Program was only P26.97 billion.
The proposed increase will be sourced from the P255-billion cut in the budget of the Department of Public Works and Highways.
Also approved by the subpanel were the P14.81-billion augmentation for the Department of Labor and Employment’s Tulong Panghanapbuhay sa Ating Disadvantaged/Displaced Workers program and P3.31 billion for the agency’s livelihood and emergency employment scheme, as well as the P356 million for the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority’s training for work scholarship plan.
Consultations
Meanwhile, Senate President Vicente Sotto III and Senate blue ribbon chair Panfilo Lacson met with the Independent Commission for Infrastructure (ICI) on Monday to discuss the government’s budget procedures and how “individual amendments” or insertions are made.
Sotto and other members of the Senate also had a consultation with Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla regarding their investigations.
Lacson is hopeful that the Senate and the House can reach an agreement to prohibit lawmakers from making budget insertions for infrastructure projects.
The Ateneo School of Government (Asog) has also urged the ICI to include in its investigation the chairs and vice chairs of the finance and appropriations panels in both chambers of Congress.
In a position paper released on Monday, Asog added that the executive secretary and members of the Development Budget Coordinating Committee should explain the huge budget cuts and diversions in 2023, 2024 and 2025, which proceeded without any intervention or protest from the executive branch.
“We are appalled by the gravity of human greed that we are witnessing,” Asog said. —WITH REPORTS FROM TINA G. SANTOS, CHARIE ABARCA AND JANE BAUTISTA
