64-M dollar question

The lack of a clear and intelligent explanation from public officials has deepened the mystery surrounding the blank portions of the 2025 General Appropriations Act (GAA), which neither the executive nor legislative branches have taken responsibility for.

Thus far, it was established that the bicameral conference committee left blanks in its report that was ratified by the House but these were filled in in the enrolled bill, which the Senate approved and sent to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. for his signature.

According to a former senator, the bicameral conference committee report cannot be amended once it has been ratified by the plenary of both chambers of Congress.

The report is only subject to either ratification or rejection. If questions are raised about the report, it should be returned to the bicam.

If the grounds for challenging the budget are valid, such as queries about blank items, the bicam can be reconstituted while the report should not have been ratified, the former fiscalizer-member of the Senate said.

He said that even if the enactment of the budget is delayed until January, which would mean a reenacted budget, the review to correct the mistakes is more important.

“The blank items should not have been allowed,” he stressed.

The former legislator recalled that in 2018 during the review of the budget for 2019, a similar anomaly happened.

He said it was deja vu when the blank items in the 2025 budget were exposed.

In 2018, the House ratified a bicam report — before Senate President Tito Sotto affixed his signature to it — that was different from the enrolled General Appropriations Bill (GAB) sent to the Senate.

Senators pinpointed P75 billion worth of various projects in the enrolled bill that were not found in the House-ratified version of the bicam report.

“So we immediately called the attention of the executive regarding this and former president Rodrigo Duterte through Executive Secretary Bingbong Medialdea called a meeting with Senate minority leader Frank Drilon, finance committee chairperson Loren Legarda, and other senators to consult them” on the discrepancy, the former senator said.

He said that since most of those called to the Palace were not lawyers, they sought the advice of Senator Drilon, a lawyer, on the steps the Senate President should take with regard to the conflicting documents.

“SP Sotto risked being blamed for delaying the enrolled bill so Senator Drilon suggested that Sotto annotate or qualify his signature,” the former senator recalled.

The Senate affixed a note to the measure stating that the Senate President’s signature covered only the contents of the House-ratified bicam report and not the enrolled bill which was peppered with blank items.

Thus, Malacañang reviewed the GAB and it found P20 billion more in inserted items.

Former president Duterte vetoed about P95 billion worth of items in the 2019 General Appropriations Act.

“Similarly, the legislators should work with the Palace to find out who filled in the blanks in the 2025 bicam report,” the senator said.

If the documents were filled in before the enrolled bill was printed, the House should assume the blame.

The House, not the Senate, prints the enrolled bill. Thus, it is possible that the blanks were filled in during the process of transmitting the enrolled bill.

The senators’ fault was their failure to point out that the ratified bicam report that contained the blanks was different from the enrolled bill.

“I think most of the blank appropriations were under the Department of Agriculture,” according to the former Senate member.

At least 14 senators signed the bicam report with the blank lines.

The burning question, thus, is when the enrolled bill was passed and transmitted to the President, who filled in the missing figures?