2nd bicam set before 2024 budget ratification

The Senate and the House of Representatives are set to ratify the reconciled version of the proposed P5.7680-trillion national budget for next year today, Senate President Juan Miguel "Migz" Zubiri said Sunday.

"We're ratifying the budget tomorrow," Zubiri told reporters when asked whether Congress would ratify the proposed 2024 national budget on Monday.

Members of the Senate and House of Representatives contingents are set to hold a second bicameral conference committee on the disagreeing votes in the 2024 General Appropriations Bill on Monday.

They are scheduled to iron out differences in their respective versions of the spending measure at the Makati Shangri-La Hotel.

Last month, Senator Juan Edgardo "Sonny" Angara, who leads the Senate contingent to the conference, claimed that several government agencies' slashed confidential and intelligence funds would not be restored in the reconciled version of the budgetary measure.

Likewise, the House Committee on Appropriations Chairperson and Ako Bicol Party-list Rep. Zaldy Co assured that the lower chamber's proposed confidential and intelligence funds that were earlier removed would not be restored.

Both, however, said the bicameral conference committee is keen on restoring P300 million worth of intelligence funds for the Department of Information and Communications Technology to combat cybercrime.

A week before the month-long break of Congress in October, the House of Representatives, led by Speaker Martin Romualdez, decided to remove the confidential funds of five agencies, including those led by Vice President Sara Duterte.

During a Senate hearing, Duterte eventually dropped her bid for P650 million worth of confidential and intelligence funds for the Department of Education and the Office of the Vice President.