Without a single query and lengthy interpellations, the House of Representatives on Friday greenlighted its own P16.170-billion proposed budget for fiscal year 2024.

Senior Deputy Speaker Aurelio Gonzales Jr., who presided over the plenary session, approved Deputy Minority Leader Paul Daza's motion to terminate the sponsorship debate on the P28.426-billion total budget of Congress, including the Senate and its adjunct offices, next year.

"It's my honor to manifest on the floor that there are no members of the minority who wish to propound any questions," Daza said.

"Mr. Speaker, on the part of the majority, we join the minority in terminating the budget interpolations of the Congress of the Philippines," Sulu lawmaker Munir Arbison Jr. seconded.

The House's P16.170 billion budget for 2024, as approved by the Department of Budget and Management under the National Expenditure Plan, is approximately P11 million lower than its present P28.014 billion expenditure.

Next year's appropriation of the House is also less than the DBM allocated it in 2022, which totaled P21.571 billion.

Overall, the DBM-approved budget for Congress in 2024 is roughly P2 billion lower than the initial budget request.

Parallel to the House, the Commission on Appointments received a budget reduction from this year's P1.206 billion to P877.727 million in 2024.

Meanwhile, the upper chamber of Congress, the Senate, will get P10.883 billion in 2024, higher than this year's P9.415 billion.

Under the NEP, the Senate Electoral Tribunal is allocated P312.698 million, while the House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal will receive P232.508 million.

Apart from Congress' budget, the House, which has the power of the purse, also closed plenary debates on the budgets of the Department of Social Welfare and Development, Development Academy of the Philippines, Authority of the Freeport Area of Bataan, Cagayan Economic Zone, Bases Conversion and Development Academy, Southern Philippines Development Authority, and Zamboanga City Special Economic Zone Authority.