President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. clapped back at former President Rodrigo Duterte after the latter criticized the General Appropriations Act (GAA) for 2025 for allegedly having discrepancies.

On Sunday, Duterte pointed out the "blank entries" in several of the budget items listed in the bicameral conference report.

He noted that it would be unlawful if the blank budget items were filled in later, likening the action to using a blank check.

Marcos defended the national budget, which he signed on 30 December 2024, saying that the former president is lying.

“He’s lying. He’s a President. He knows that you cannot pass a GAA with a blank. He’s lying. And he’s lying because he knows perfectly well that that doesn’t ever happen,” he said in a chance interview.

“Throughout the history of the entire Philippines, the GAA is not allowed to have an item that does not state what the project is, what the cost is, and what the funds are. So, it’s a lie,” he added.

He also urged the public to look at a copy of the GAA posted on the website of the Department of Budget and Management (DBM).

“Take a look at the budget, don't go through each one. Look for what they call a blank check. See if there is even one. To prove that what I'm telling you is true,” Marcos stressed.

Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin shared the same reaction as the President, noting that the 2025 budget was scrutinized by Congress and DBM staff.

“All 4,057 pages of its two thick volumes (which were printed in fine print — with nearly sixty lines on each page) were exhaustively reviewed by hundreds of professional staff from Congress and the Department of Budget and Management,” Bersamin said in an earlier statement.

“This meticulous line-by-line scrutiny is a pre-enactment check performed by dedicated civil servants to ensure that the GAA contained no single discrepancy in the amounts being appropriated,” he added.

‘Malicious and criminal’

Bersamin also criticized the statements made by Duterte and Davao City 3rd District Representative Isidro Ungab on the "discrepancies" in the GAA, dismissing them as “fake news.”

“Some quarters, including a former president, have maliciously peddled fake news about President Marcos having signed the GAA of 2025 with certain parts of the enactment purposely left blank to enable the administration to simply fill in the amounts like in a blank check,” he said.

“The peddling of such fake news is outrightly malicious and should be condemned as criminal. No page of the 2025 National Budget was left unturned before the president signed it into law,” he added.

The Executive Secretary emphasized that Duterte and his cohorts should know better that the GAA could not contain blank items.

“It is impossible for any funding items to be left blank, as alleged by misinformed and malicious sources,” Bersamin said.

“The true facts and the printed figures appearing in the GAA easily debunk the malicious claims of deliberate blanks being left for filling in,” he added.

FRRD’s remarks only a legal opinion

Meanwhile, former Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Salvador Panelo defended Duterte, saying that the former president was only expressing a legal opinion based on the assumption that statements from Ungab were true.

“FPRRD’s remarks are based on the validity of Cong. Ungab’s findings plus on the assumption that the GAA as signed into law by PBBM contains the same omissions,” he said.

“Hence, FPRRD is saying IF, as charged by Ungab, the GAA was signed with infirmities, then those responsible could go to jail,” he added.

Panelo also clarified that Duterte did not allege any blank item in the national budget or a budget allocation that has no particular program.

Marcos signed the P6.326 trillion 2025 national budget late last year after discovering differences with the National Expenditure Program (NEP) from the budget proposal from Congress.

According to DBM, the NEP is submitted to assist Congress in the review and deliberation of the proposed national budget for the legislation of the annual appropriations measures for the next fiscal year. It also contains the details of the government's proposed programs.

After discovering the gap between the NEP and the budget proposal, Marcos vetoed P194 billion worth of line items that were “inconsistent with the administration's priorities.”

Since last week, the President has been conducting meetings with heads of government agencies to review their respective budget allocations. Some agencies have requested to restore funds for some of their projects.