Several political figures involved in the annual budget-making process are accusing members of the House of Representatives of being the likely culprits behind the filling in of the blank items in the Bicameral Conference Committee’s budget report to pave the way for pork barrel projects.

A comparison of the House-approved budget proposal with the blank items and the 2025 General Appropriations Act (GAA) signed by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. indicated that P25 billion was taken away and reallocated.

Most of the reallocated funds were items intended for the Department of Agriculture (DA).

The juggling of funds is suspected to have been resorted to to give way to pork project insertions in the budgets of agencies.

Former House panel chairperson Rep. Isidro Ungab of Davao City’s 3rd District and former president Rodrigo Duterte revealed the discrepancy in the budget during a recent podcast.

During the live feed, Duterte said that leaving blanks in the budget is not allowed and is a criminal act.

Ungab posted on his Facebook page a signed Bicameral Conference Committee (BCC) report received by the House Bills and Index Services and stamped on 11 December 2024.

“This is the evidence that there were 13 pages with 28 blank items in this report signed by the Bicam members and ratified by the plenary,” the legislator asserted.

Malacañang, through Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin, denied the existence of the blank items in the 2025 General Appropriations Act (GAA) that was signed by the President and accused Ungab of creating the issue.

However, those who had received copies of the controversial documents, including Daily Tribune, said that it was a copy of the bicam report that was signed by members of the panel.

Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa confirmed that the document presented by former president Duterte and Ungab to the public was the same one in his possession.

Dela Rosa explained that the report was the reason he walked out of the meeting and refused to sign it.

“For those who are saying that I am scared, that you’ll discard me, you know, if I were scared, I should have signed the Bicam report. I was the only one who didn’t sign it and walked out of the Bicam meeting,” he said.

Duterte had raised concerns about how the blank sections of the report were filled.

The blank items in the report disappeared after the House transmitted the bill to the Senate. The enrolled bill was then approved by the chamber and sent to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. for his signature.

Review bill sent to Senate.

Former senator Panfilo Lacson said the enrolled bill must be examined to determine who filled in the blanks from either the House of Representatives or Malacañang.

A Bicam report cannot be amended, it is only subject to being ratified or rejected by either or both houses, Lacson said.

He said he was provided a copy of the Bicam report that was sent to the Senate “and it does not differ from the report provided to House members.”

“There are indeed blank spaces in the report, roughly 12 to 13 pages out of the 200-page Bicam report,” he said.

“What was included in the BCC report were the disagreeing provisions, where the House and Senate versions differed, and these were reconciled. That’s all the report contained, so it didn’t reach thousands of pages. From what I’ve heard, the total count was around 200 pages. Of those 200 pages, there were pages containing blank appropriations. That fact was already established,” according to Lacson.

Since the report was signed by the panel members, it should have been a complete bill.

“Who filled in the blanks? If the blanks in the bicam report in the Senate version, which I assume was the same as that of the House, were filled in when the enrolled bill was printed, the blame should fall on the House members because it is where the enrolled bill was printed, not the Senate,” Lacson said.

However, he said, there was also some responsibility on the Senate’s part as far as their failure to point this out. For instance, they could have said, “‘Wait a minute, this has blanks,’ or questioned why the Bicam report they ratified ended up being different from the enrolled bill.”

“Another problem, and perhaps a bigger controversy, is that if the report was submitted as is, with blanks, most of the blanks in the appropriations appeared to be under the DA. This includes the Philippine Coconut Authority, Fisheries, and the Office of the Secretary. I saw it myself because I was sent a copy,” Lacson said.

Even at the Senate’s level, “there was already an issue because the report they produced and signed still had blanks,” he said.

“If there were still blanks in the enrolled bill — since it’s a fact that the Bicam report had blanks and the enrolled bill should be a faithful reproduction of the Bicam report — this means that if those blanks made it to Malacañang, the executive branch must have filled them in,” according to the former senator.

Bersamin and the Department of Budget and Management, however, denied the 2025 GAA had blanks in it.