Ten days after the original date of the signing of the national budget for 2025, President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. has enacted the General Appropriations Act (GAA), or Republic Act 12116.

The GAA sets the budget that will be spent by the government for Fiscal Year 2025. This includes projects, operational expenses, and other programs.

The original submitted budget proposal was P6.352 trillion, but the passed budget was reduced to P6.326 trillion after Marcos directly vetoed line items “that are not consistent with the country’s development plan and responsive to the needs of the people.”

“After an exhaustive and thorough review, we have directly vetoed over P194 billion worth of line items that are not consistent with our programmed priorities. These include allocations for certain programs and projects of the Department of Public Works and Highways, and those under the Unprogrammed Appropriations, which increased by 300 percent,” he said.

Conditional implementation

In addition, the government will pursue a “Conditional implementation” of certain items that utilize the national budget. This includes the implementation of the Ayuda sa Kapos ang Kita Program or AKAP, as it would need guidelines in order to be properly implemented.

Earlier, AKAP became a concern as it could lead to misuse of funds, especially since the 2025 midterm elections are right around the corner.

Marcos said guidelines for the implementation of AKAP will be “strategic leading to the long-term improvement of the lives of qualified beneficiaries, while guarding against misuse and duplication and fragmented benefits.”

“This approach is anchored on a simple yet profound truth: the appropriation of public funds must not break the public trust,” he stressed.

In addition to AKAP, other programs are also subject to Conditional Implementation, such as the DSWD-OSEC special provisions on the Payapa at Masaganang Pamayanan Program (PAMANA), the definition of the basic infrastructure program under the DPWH OSEC, the payment of retirement benefits and pension under the Office of the Ombudsman, and other special provisions.

No reverting to reenacted budget

Prior to the budget signing, lawmakers and stakeholders called on Marcos to return the budget proposal to Congress and reenact the 2024 budget for next year. The Chief Executive disagreed with this suggestion, saying it would set the country back and hamper economic growth.

“This is not an option that we can afford. A reenacted budget will set us back, delay our vital programs, jeopardize targets for economic growth, including our goals of achieving single-digit poverty levels, and upper-middle-income status,” he stressed.

Vetoed items

Shortly after the budget signing, Marcos’ economic team hosted a press conference explaining the process behind the President’s decision. Over the holidays, Marcos met his economic team multiple times to comb through the budget proposal line by line.

Among those he met with were Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin, Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman, Finance Secretary Ralph Recto, Public Works and Highways Secretary Manuel Bonoan, and National Economic and Development Authority Secretary Arsenio Balisacan.

The team listed the vetoed items in the 2025 budget, explaining that these did not align with the priorities of the administration.

According to the Department of Budget and Management (DBM), P26 billion from the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) was directly vetoed, as well as P168 billion worth of unprogrammed appropriations.

For his part, DPWH Secretary Bonoan said that the projects affected by the President’s veto are “not totally supportive of the eight-point socio-economic agenda of the government” and need to be scrutinized before implementation.

“These are some of the projects are not ready for implementation at this point in time. So, these are projects that we have deferred actually,” he said.

Funding education

One notable point of contention in the budget was the allocation of funds across priority sectors. While the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) received a larger budget than DepEd, the broader education sector, including the Commission on Higher Education and other agencies and state universities and colleges (SUCs), received a total of P1.06T against the infrastructure agency's P1.01T.