ASEANEWS HEADLINE: MANILA: Senate eyes budget cut across-the-board by 20 percent
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Committee on Finance (Subcommittee H) (October 9, 2025)
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MANILA, Philippines — The Senate is looking at slashing agencies’ budget “across-the-board” by 15 to 20 percent due to allegations of overpriced infrastructure projects implemented by the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH).
Speaking to radio dwIZ yesterday, Senate President Vicente Sotto III said his plan was pushed by Senate finance committee chair Sherwin Gatchalian and supported by the other senators.
“We just want to remove the excess funds used by corrupt officials to earn kickbacks from projects,” Sotto said.
Sotto shared his belief that besides ghost or “non-existent” flood control projects, the corruption racket involves not just substandard projects with scrimped funds spent on cheap materials, but also overpriced projects with padded budgets so there is funding for commissions.
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“They jack up the price for the same quantity and quality of materials,” Sotto said.
The congressional investigations have expanded its probe on flood control into alleged “ghost” hospitals and health centers, delayed construction of military facilities and P10-billion overpriced farm-to-market roads, zeroing in on the DPWH’s infrastructure programs with the Departments of Health, National Defense and Agriculture.
Senators have challenged the departments and their secretaries to implement the infrastructure projects themselves, without the help of the graft-tainted DPWH.
Sotto said the Senate is still on track in its deliberation on the P6.793-trillion 2026 national budget, which was passed on second reading by the House of Representatives.
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Sotto said the Senate will not wait for the President to certify the budget bill as urgent, and the chamber will comply with the three-day rule between second and third reading passage of the bill.
The House is set to pass the budget bill on third reading on Monday, three days after the second reading approval. Sotto vowed that the Senate will make sure no “budget insertions” will happen in the national outlay for lawmakers’ pet projects during the closed-door bicameral meeting.
Unprogrammed funds
Meanwhile, Senate President Pro Tempore Panfilo Lacson is in favor of scrapping the P250-billion unprogrammed appropriations (UA) or funds in the P6.793-trillion national budget for 2026.
Speaking to radio dzMM yesterday, Lacson clarified he is still amenable to retaining the use of the standby funds for foreign-assisted projects, but not for locally-funded ones, after he found that the UA was used to fund flood control projects that became “ghost” or non-existent.
“Funds in the unprogrammed appropriations for other purposes will be removed,” he said.
Lacson and Senate finance chair Sherwin Gatchalian have branded UA as the new “pork barrel fund” in the national budget.
“We may have to confront this issue in the bicam. If I become a member of the Senate contingent to the bicam, I will add my voice to that of Sen. Gatchalian, along with the voices of Filipinos who are outraged over corruption,” Lacson said.
The House of Representatives – in its version of the 2026 budget bill that was passed on second reading Friday – retained the UA but scrapped the P35-billion portion intended for the “Strengthening Assistance for Government Infrastructure Program.”
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Thanks to lawmakers’ “budget insertions,” UA amounted to P531.7 billion in the 2025 national budget bill after it went through the bicameral conference committee. President Marcos deleted P168.24 billion in UA under the 2025 General Appropriations Act (GAA), which he signed into law. This left a remaining P363-billion UA in the national outlay.
UA are portions of the budget that can only be tapped with excess revenue collection and approved loans for foreign assisted projects.
These are basically standby funds for additional spending on pet projects if there are new or excess revenue sources for the government.
Sotto, for his part, is also amenable to scrapping the UA.
Slush fund?
At the same time, the Makabayan bloc slammed members of the House majority for rejecting proposals to scrap the budget for unprogrammed applications, as well as measures to deter fund misuse.
“The majority’s rejection of these basic accountability measures is a clear signal that they want to keep the unprogrammed appropriations as a slush fund for corruption,” ACT Teachers party-list Rep. Antonio Tinio said in a joint statement with Kabataan party-list Rep. Renee Co and Gabriela Women’s Party Rep. Sarah Elago.
“The question is, what are they hiding? Why didn’t they want to return the safeguards against abuses?” Tinio added.
Tinio said he and the rest of the Makabayan bloc voted “Yes” to zero out the Unprogrammed Appropriations entirely.
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When the majority rejected this proposal on Friday’s period of amendments in the proposed national budget for 2026, Tinio said he introduced critical amendments to prevent the blatant abuse of these funds.
“Yet even these safeguards were shot down by the supermajority,” he said. — Jose Rodel Clapano
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