House set to OK proposed P6.352-T national budget on Wednesday

By Kenneth Christiane L. Basilio, Reporter

THE House of Representatives is set to approve on Wednesday the proposed P6.352-trillion national budget for next year on third and final reading, House Speaker and Leyte Rep. Ferdinand Martin G. Romualdez said on Sunday, noting the need to expedite the spending plan’s plenary debates to give the Senate sufficient time to scrutinize it.

The 2025 national budget is equivalent to 22.1% of the country’s gross domestic product, and 10.1% higher than the P5.768-trillion budget this year.

The budget proposal increased appropriations for defense by 6.4%, more than doubled the transportation budget and augmented funding for education by less than 1%, while it slashed the allocations for agriculture, health and social welfare for next year.

Philippine President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. is expected to certify as urgent House Bill (HB) No. 10800, the General Appropriations Bill, allowing the approval of the bill on second and third reading on the same day. This will also pave way for the chamber to approve the budget ahead of the congressional break on Sept. 28 to Nov. 3.

Mr. Romualdez said the House is adhering to the approval deadline on Wednesday due to the need to treat the “national spending program with urgency without sacrificing transparency.”

“We have sufficient time to finally agree on the budget before year-end. It is the most important piece of legislation Congress passes every year,” he added.

HB 10800 mostly retained allocations, proposed by the Budget department under the National Expenditure Plan, with changes made only to the Office of the Vice President’s (OVP) budget.

The House appropriations panel unanimously slashed the OVP’s budget by 64% to P733 million from P2.03 billion due to project redundancies with the Health and Social Welfare departments. The P1.3-billion reallocation was equally split to both their financial aid program and medical assistance for indigents.

The proposed national budget would help fund the government’s socioeconomic priority programs, including social protection projects and financial assistance initiatives, according to Mr. Romualdez.

“We hope our people will feel the benefits of growth through the programs intended for them in the national budget,” he said.

“The national budget is one of the most potent tools for the government to intervene and shape the economy, politics and society for the better,” Jose Enrique “Sonny” A. Africa, executive director at think tank IBON Foundation, said in a Viber message.

“Spending P6.4 trillion over just the short period of a year ensures the administration can have an immediate impact… on whatever it decides to prioritize.”

Mr. Africa noted that the collective P67-billion cut in the Labor and Employment, Social Welfare and Development, and Health department’s indigent financial aid programs under the proposed 2025 budget is “grossly inconsistent” with the government’s social agenda as Filipinos grapple with poverty.

The proposed budgets for agriculture, health, and social welfare were reduced by 4.7%, 7.6%, and 3.4%, respectively. Congressmen have expressed willingness to increase their funding during panel deliberations of the House appropriations committee.

“With elections looming through, it is quite possible for emergency assistance programs to be increased or reintroduced during bicameral discussions, as what happened for the 2024 budget when House leaders inserted aid programs,” said Mr. Africa.

The country’s poverty rate fell to 15.5% in 2023 from 18.1% in 2021, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said in August. The number of poor Filipinos declined by 12.26% to 17.54 million in 2023 from 19.99 million in 2021.

The government is aiming to reduce poverty incidence to 9% by 2028 or the end of the Marcos administration. This will require lifting a total of seven million Filipinos out of poverty in the next four years, or 1.75 million annually, the National Economic Development Authority said.

The proposed budget for the Health department could also be increased if the controversy surrounding Philippine Health Insurance Corp.’s (PhilHealth) remittance of P89.9 billion to the National Government’s coffers would gain further public scrutiny, Mr. Africa said.

“The cut in the health budget similarly diminishes public health services, while pushing impoverished Filipinos towards more expensive private health care that is only very partially mitigated by PhilHealth benefits.”

Budget cuts to the Agriculture sector are also “unexpected” given the government’s priority to promote food security, according to a Congressional Policy and Budget Research Department’s (CPBRD) report on the proposed spending plan.

“The sector needs adequate funds to sustain the implementation of programs and projects that will address the many challenges besetting the sector including low productivity, high prices, rural poverty and climate change,” the CPBRD report noted.

Camarines Sur Rep. Luis Raymund F. Villafuerte in August said Congress should consider increasing the Agriculture department’s budget by at least P88 billion to fund irrigation infrastructure, post-harvest facilities and food distribution initiatives, and support to rice development projects.

The plenary will hear turno en contra remarks of those opposing the allocations under the proposed budget before heading to the measure’s period of amendments. The House is expected to create a “small committee” to resolve proposed amendments to the national budget, Mr. Romualdez said.

The chamber has already approved the proposed funding for the Human Settlements, Labor and Employment, Trade and Industry, National Defense departments, among others.

The floor will take up the proposed budgets of the Health, Agriculture, Education, Public Works, and Social Welfare departments, and other remaining agencies from Sept. 23 to 25.