Senatorial candidate former Senate president Vicente “Tito” Sotto III was enthusiastically welcomed by Tacloban City residents on Friday during a campaign stop as part of the Alyansa Para sa Bagong Pilipinas slate.

With his trademark wit and political experience, Sotto assured the crowd he would push for a fair budget allocation to accelerate development in Eastern Visayas.

“It’s actually the same banana. You see, the single most important piece of legislation that Congress wants passed — both the House of Representatives and the Senate — is the budget. So, for Eastern Visayas, if we are there and we monitor the budget, for example, the Causeway Project, we promise that it will be completed,” he said.

A veteran lawmaker with decades of legislative experience, Sotto emphasized the importance of budget oversight in ensuring that funds reach the intended projects on time.

He stressed that regional development should not be hindered by delays in government spending.

Beyond infrastructure funding, Sotto pushed for greater local government involvement in budget planning. He championed bottom-up budgeting, a system that allows local officials to allocate funds based on their communities’ most pressing needs.