Lacson pushes anew for budget process reforms
Former Sen. Panfilo Lacson had a sense of déjà vu from the latest brouhaha over the blank appropriations in the congressional bicameral report on the already-enacted 2025 national budget, or Republic Act No. 12116.
According to Lacson, the appearance of blank budget items in the ratified bicam report on the budget “looks like a repeat of the 2019 General Appropriations Act.”
Lacson, who is seeking a fresh election to the Senate, recalled that senators led by then Senate President Tito Sotto “discovered anomalous entries in the printed enrolled bill that were not reflected in our ratified bicam report” in 2018.
Senators prompted then President Rodrigo Duterte to veto P95.3 billion from the spending bill.
“But the big difference now is, it seems nobody among the present senators dared—or cared—to scrutinize the budget documents. Hence, this controversy now brewing,” he said.
“The Filipino taxpayers deserve an explanation. A bicam report cannot be amended. It is only subject to being ratified or rejected by either or both houses,” he stressed.
But, Lacson clarified, the controversy can be easily resolved by comparing the bicam report ratified by Congress and the bill that was printed by the House of Representatives and submitted to President Marcos (the enrolled bill).
However, Mr. Marcos vetoed more than P194 billion from the proposed spending bill, before signing into law Republic Act No. 12116, or the General Appropriations Act of 2025, amounting to a record P6.326 trillion.
The controversy emerged after Davao City Rep. Isidro Ungab claimed that the bicam report ratified by the Senate and the House contained multiple blanks, prompting former President Rodrigo Duterte to claim that RA 12116 was invalid.
Senate Deputy Minority Leader Risa Hontiveros agreed to a comparison of the ratified bicam report and the enrolled bill.
“I agree with Senator Ping, being…one of those very focused, prudent, consistent in following and criticizing to improve [the] budget process,” said Hontiveros, who claimed not to have signed the bicam report.
Hontiveros, who is a member of the bicameral committee, said she did not vote for the report’s ratification because of objectionable cuts to education programs and the defunding of the Philippine Health Insurance Corp.’s subsidy.
But she claimed that in all bicam meetings she attended, “I did not see blank lines in any of the working drafts that we worked on.”
