The dispute over the blank items in the national budget, which reached the Supreme Court, should never have occurred if legislators had followed proper procedures in Congress.

The anomaly was revealed in a podcast by former President Rodrigo Duterte and Davao City Rep. Isidro Ungab, erstwhile chairperson of the House appropriations committee, where both revealed there were missing portions in the Bicameral Conference Committee (Bicam) report, which was the draft of the 2025 General Appropriations Bill (GAB) that was submitted to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

But in the enrolled bill that the President signed as the General Appropriations Act (GAA) for this year, the blanks had been filled in, thus raising the question of who provided the missing numbers.

Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin maintained that there were no blank items in the enrolled budget bill, the version forwarded to Marcos for his signature — which was correct since the gaps were in the Bicam report.

Former Senate President Tito Sotto strongly criticized the practice of legislators allowing those without a mandate to make revisions to the GAB.

“Regarding the reported blank items in the budget, which a member of the House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations explained were corrections directed by the secretariat, my point is that the process was flawed — it should never have happened,” Sotto said.

“Any bill, once it is deliberated on in the bicameral conference committee, should not be revised in any way, even the commas in the sentences should not be touched,” he said.

Sotto said the practice when he was Senate president was that even if a period was missing (in the bill), “we returned it to the plenary and passed it on third reading again.”

He emphasized that Congress cannot delegate its powers to the secretariat. “That is not allowed, it should be the legislators who should complete the bill,” he said.

Sotto stressed that even minor corrections, such as in grammar or clerical errors, in a bill are the responsibility of the legislators.

Marikina Rep. Stella Quimbo, the acting chairperson of the House appropriations panel, admitted there were blank items in the Bicam report but tried to downplay it, saying that these were only for the final computations and “were ministerial on the part of the technical staff.”

Quimbo said the Bicam committee explicitly authorized the technical secretariats of both the House and the Senate to correct and adjust “as required” the Bicam report on the 2025 budget.

Sotto debunked Quimbo’s admission as if it was a routine practice in the legislature.

“Some of our legislators need to undergo a parliamentary rules and procedures workshop. Ministerial corrections by technical staff are never allowed to any bill, much more a law. You bring it back to the plenary,” Sotto said in a social media post in reaction to Quimbo’s admission.

“The mandate of legislators is never delegated,” Sotto underlined.

Former Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez agreed with Sotto, saying that the “power to add or subtract to the contents of the Bicam report to be submitted to the GAA rests with Congress.”

“(The corrections) should be done in the plenary. It cannot be ministerial with individuals or with only a group of congressmen. The question is, what did they insert in the budget? Was it ratified by the plenary? And if not, why did they put amounts there?” Alvarez contended.

“Filling in the blanks with amounts without the approval of Congress is not a correction. That’s called unauthorized insertions. That’s a criminal act,” he said.

The two former congressional leaders know what they are talking about, not least when it comes to lax leadership and a breakdown of discipline in the legislature.

Even worse, it might have been a conspiracy to manipulate the budget.