The controversy surrounding the proposed 2025 national budget, allegedly inflated with legislative pork barrel insertions, has intensified as business leaders raised concerns about the version released by the bicameral conference committee (bicam).

The bicam is composed of selected members of the Senate and the House of Representatives and is mocked as the third chamber of the legislature.

The Makati Business Club (MBC) issued a statement yesterday calling for a more transparent and accountable process in finalizing the General Appropriations Act (GAA) or the national budget, “particularly in the actions and discussions of the bicameral committee.”

The MBC commended President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. for his initiative in reviewing the bicam-approved 2025 budget before its passage.

Presidential Communications Office Secretary Cesar Chavez said the President is eyeing to sign the 2025 national budget on 30 December after some groups questioned the proposed allocations to some government agencies.

The group listed adjustments made by the bicam committee to the 2025 General Appropriations Act which it called alarming.

In the bicam-approved version of the 2025 GAA, the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) was given a P1.1 trillion budget, higher than the Department of Education (DepEd) which will receive P737 billion.

This is equivalent to a net increase for the DPWH of almost P289 billion. Giving the DPWH a higher budget than the DepEd may violate the constitutional provision which mandates that the highest budgetary priority should be for education, according to the MBC.

Education Secretary Sonny Angara hoped for more funding for education from various sources, such as the Official Development Assistance (ODA) from foreign governments and multilateral lenders, and private firms that would finance projects to provide over 150,000 classrooms needed amid the growing student population.

“We found that education is down at eighth in the priority list for funding through ODA and was only one percent of the total. The bulk or 76 percent goes to physical infrastructure,” Angara said.

The group of executives representing the biggest corporations in the country also questioned the budget increase for Congress of P19 billion. “There is no sufficient explanation for the need and/or justification for this budgetary adjustment,” the MBC pointed out.

Neither was there any explanation or justification for the P26 billion allotment for the Ayuda Para sa Kapos sa Kita Program (AKAP) of the Department of Social Welfare and Development that is suspected of being used for vote buying.

“AKAP is apparently a financial assistance subsidy to ‘near poor’ families but there is no information on how this will be implemented, or the conditions required for receiving the assistance. We note that the Senate has also questioned the funds for the program,” the MBC statement said.

Why cancel PhilHealth subsidy?

While funds are allotted for assistance to the poor, the proposed 2025 GAA removed the P74.43 billion subsidy for the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth), a key agency, being the state health insurer, the business group said.

The removal of the subsidy was supposedly an offshoot of the P89.9 billion “excess funds” that the Department of Finance tried to siphon off to the National Treasury, only to be stopped by a Supreme Court temporary restraining order.

Legislators in the bicam would later argue that PhilHealth can draw from its P600-billion reserve fund for people who cannot afford to pay the monthly PhilHealth premium that the withdrawn subsidy would have covered.

The MBC said the way it is now structured, the proposed 2025 national budget does not respond to the needs of Filipinos.

It cited Pulse Asia’s March 2024 Ulat ng Bayan survey which listed the top three concerns of Filipinos as controlling inflation, increasing the pay of workers, and fighting graft and corruption in government.

The concerns raised in the survey “are clear indicators of what should be the government’s priority,” the MBC indicated.

“Therefore, the 2025 budget should focus on addressing supply-side inflation, improving infrastructure, addressing the workforce skills gap, and driving government efficiency and transparency to attract more job-creating investments,” it said.

The MBC believes the national budget should be designed to address the concerns and needs of the Filipino people.

Thus, it called for more transparent and needs-aligned corrective actions to the 2025 budget.

Meanwhile, IBON Foundation executive director Sonny Africa said the proposed P6.4-trillion national budget may sound impressive but the way it will be spent “doesn’t really respond to the nation’s social and economic needs, while unfortunately favoring the pork of politicians and the profits of the rich.”

“The budget is a quantitative measure of how much needs to be fixed in the country’s undemocratic politics and inequitable economy,” he stressed.