Senator vows ‘education budget’ for 2026
The national budget for 2026 will be an “education budget,” according to the new chief of the Senate finance panel.
“We will prioritize education in the 2026 budget. We also heard from our President that a huge portion [of the budget] will be dedicated to education,” Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian said at the Kapihan sa Senado forum on Monday, referring to President Marcos’ State of the Nation Address on July 28.
Gatchalian, the chair of the Senate committee on finance in the 20th Congress, said his panel “will push for the education budget to exceed 4 percent of our Gross Domestic Product (GDP).”
“Right now it’s around 3.8 to 3.9 percent. In the past, [the allotment for education] reached 4 percent, but it went down. For 2026, we will [aim] to bring it back to 4 percent of GDP,” he said.
President’s scrutiny
Malacañang is proposing a budget next year of P6.793 trillion.
Gatchalian said his committee had begun coordinating with the chamber’s Legislative Budget Research and Monitoring Office to narrow down the priorities for the proposed budget, adding that a “proposed calendar” had been drawn for its passage.
But he also pointed out that the budget’s enactment before Congress goes on a Christmas break would depend on whether the measure would pass the President’s scrutiny.
Mr. Marcos vowed in his address that he would return any proposed budget if it isn’t aligned with his administration’s programs—even warning that “I am willing to do this even if we end up with a reenacted budget.”
The President’s report came amid questions about the government’s flood control projects—as Filipinos were coping with floods late last month while the southwest monsoon was intensified by a series of typhoons.
“If all things are true to its mandate and adhere to the pronouncement of the President, then I can assure [all concerned] that before the end of the year, [we will have a new budget],” Gatchalian said.
Transparency
Gatchalian said further he would recommend the online publication of the entire budget process.
At present, he said, only the National Expenditure Program—which is Malacañang’s proposed budget—and the General Appropriations Act, the final budget passed by Congress, are uploaded in the website of the Department of Budget and Management (DBM).
“If you want to scrutinize the budget, you can only see step 1 and the last step. But you can’t see it step by step because not all documents are being uploaded,” the senator said. “So, we will now require DBM to go one step further. They have a budget preparation form 201. This contains the budget requests of all agencies. We will now request for it to be uploaded to the website so that the people will know how much the agencies are requesting from us.”
“The reconciled version by both chambers will likewise be uploaded online so that the public can scrutinize the changes in the budget before it gets delivered to Malacañang for the President’s signature,” he added.
Gatchalian also said he would not allow any budget insertions that were not included in the Senate or House committee reports.
He stressed that under his leadership, there will be no surprise funding allocations that bypass the proper legislative process.
“[Since] there is now a strong clamor for transparency, our direction is… we will undergo or experience a golden age of transparency and accountability,” he said. —WITH A REPORT FROM MAILA AGER
