Reflections on the 2026 national budget
Last Jan. 5, President Marcos signed into law the P6.79 trillion national budget for 2026. This amount is equivalent to 22 percent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) and represents a 7.4-percent increase from the P6.33 trillion 2025 budget.
The 2026 budget is a litmus test of the Marcos administration’s credibility in its anticorruption drive. This campaign began when the President, in his recent State of the Nation Address, challenged government officials to have some shame (“mahiya naman kayo”), following allegations of massive corruption in flood control projects.
The question now is whether that statement made a difference. Nahiya ba sila? To the administration’s credit, there were incremental gains.
On the budget process: Improvements in transparency. For the first time, the bicameral conference committee was opened to the public through livestreaming. Moreover, civil society groups were invited as resource persons during committee deliberations and budget-related documents were made publicly available in the Senate’s budget transparency portal.
This increased openness contributed to a more restrained level of unprogrammed appropriations, amounting to P150.9 billion, or 2.2 percent of the total budget. This is significantly lower than the P731 billion in 2024 (13 percent of budget) and P807 billion in 2023 (15 percent).
On the actual budget: Education-centric budget. The education sector will receive the highest allocation at P1.345 trillion, equivalent to 4.4 percent of the country’s GDP, and about 29 percent higher than last year. This includes P85 billion for the construction and completion of school buildings and other facilities.
Reduction of the bloated DPWH budget. The Department of Public Works and Highways will receive P529.6 billion in 2026, a 52.6-percent decrease from P1.007 trillion last year. All DPWH infrastructure projects now include geographic coordinate points to identify their exact locations and strengthen monitoring.
Stronger investment in early childhood care. Considerable resources are allocated to programs targeting the first 2,000 days of a child’s life. These include the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) (P113 billion); School-Based Feeding Program to all incoming Kindergarten and Grade 1 learners (P25.7 billion); immunization program (P10.2 billion); and Supplementary Feeding Program (P9.6 billion).
However, significant shortcomings remain. “Ayuda”-heavy budget. The budget continues to contain pork barrel-like items in the form of large, discretionary aid programs such as the Medical Assistance for Indigent and Financially Incapacitated Patients (P51 billion); Protective Program for Individuals and Families in Especially Difficult Circumstances (P63.9 billion); and Tulong Panghanapbuhay sa Ating Disadvantaged/Displaced Workers (P22 billion).
Rather than funding unconditional ayudas that are prone to corruption and misuse, these resources would be better channeled to 4Ps and the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. 4Ps, in particular, maintains a transparent beneficiary list and conditions of using cash grants for investments in childhood care and education.
Moving forward, we recommend these interventions to make the budget process more inclusive:
Stricter monitoring of budget implementation. Oversight should be strengthened through a more active joint congressional oversight committee on public expenditures and civil society participation. This committee, in coordination with the Department of Budget and Management, should monitor the utilization of public funds and regularly make reports to the public.
Empower regional development councils. RDCs include representatives from the private sector and civil society making them inclusive by design to ensure that projects are aligned with regional and national development plans.
Earlier civil society engagement. For the 2027 budget, civil society participation should begin at the drafting of the President’s National Expenditure Plan. Citizens should be involved at the earliest stage of the budget process. Outstanding and bright students from state universities and colleges should be tapped to help review early agency proposals, such as engineering and architecture students assessing infrastructure projects.
In conclusion, some public officials are gradually feeling some shame and heeding the call for greater transparency in the budget process.
But these are not enough. This momentum must extend to budget execution, supervision, and monitoring, particularly, in the implementation of infrastructure projects.
More importantly, there has to be accountability. Public officials implicated in the flood control scandal should return the money they stole and must be put to jail as soon as possible.
If the administration seeks to restore consumer and business confidence, it must be aggressive not only in reforming the budget process, but also in enforcing accountability against those who stole the future of the Filipino people.
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Gary B. Teves is a Filipino politician and public servant who served as secretary of the Department of Finance.
