Imee to PBBM: Review nat’l outlay

Senator Imee Marcos has called on her brother, President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., to heed the public sentiment on certain provisions in the proposed P6.352-trillion 2025 General Appropriations Bill (GAB).

According to Senator Marcos, who admitted she did not sign the bicameral conference committee report on the disagreeing provisions of the 2025 GAB, the President should look into the line items in the proposed budget for the coming fiscal year.

“Now I am calling on my brother. If my voice alone is weak, I hope it can now be heard through the collective plea of the people,” she said in a radio interview on Monday.

“During President Bongbong’s SoNA (State of the Nation Address), he laid out the priority projects. Now you are being defied by people you thought would work for your benefit and for the country. Yet, it turns out they are opposing all of your priorities,” she said.

She continued: “That’s why I am appealing to the Palace: Please scrutinize the issues and the budget line-by-line. Our hope lies in his hands — to ensure that critical items are not removed. Do not zero out PhilHealth or flood control. It’s already gone.”

Last Wednesday, Congress ratified the 2025 GAB, which includes the highest allocation for the Department of Public Works and Highways for next year amounting to P1.113 trillion.

Lawmakers approved the bicameral conference report that also suggested budget cuts to the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) and PhilHealth totaling P96 billion and P74.4 billion, respectively.

Senator Marcos also questioned the logic behind the inclusion of the P26-billion allocation for the controversial Ayuda para sa Kapos ang Kita Program, or AKAP, of the DSWD, which was earlier defunded by the Senate in their final version of the budget bill.

“When the President’s budget, the NEP (National Expenditure Program), was given to us, it was clear that AKAP was not mentioned — because I was the one who handled the DSWD. So, my understanding was that it was not a priority of the President — and it was also not mentioned in his SoNA,” Marcos said.

“When it came to the congressional budget, since they are the first to review it, and later when the Senate received their House version, AKAP was still not included. I made sure of this because I don’t like sudden insertions, I don’t like surprises. They said, ‘none,’ because there was already the AICS, and the President had other priorities,” she added.

She continued: “But by the time it reached the bicam, the AKAP was reinstated and supposedly arranged in the Senate. I questioned this arrangement because it is prohibited by law.”

Senator Marcos said the supposed arrangement between the House of Representatives and the Senate on the P26-billion funding for AKAP was “against the law and the conscience of the people.”

“Once we pass the budget, that should be final. But this so-called agreement, this ‘settlement,’ where Congress and the Senate allegedly divided the funds — hold on, that is wrong. That absolutely cannot be allowed,” she said.

“I do not want the administration to be put in harm’s way. It’s even an election year. It’s truly better for the President to look into this. It’s now in his hands,” she added.

Senator Grace Poe, who chairs the Senate Committee on Finance, said the House-initiated AKAP would receive P26 billion instead of P39 billion in the 2025 GAB.

Poe said that senators are set to receive P5 billion from the P26 billion AKAP funds, while members of the House of Representatives will share the remaining P21 billion.