Senator-Elect Ping Lacson said President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. should not only seek courtesy resignations from his Cabinet to reset his administration, but also use his influence to convince Congress—particularly the House of Representatives—to remove self-serving and unnecessary budget insertions, including pork barrel funds, from the 2026 budget deliberations.

"More than recalibrating his administration by calling for the courtesy resignations of his Cabinet members, the President must exercise his 'persuasive' powers over Congress, especially the House of Representatives, to get rid of indiscriminate and self-aggrandizing 'insertions' and 'pork barrel' in the forthcoming congressional deliberations of the 2026 budget measure.

The 2025 General Appropriations Act is like a deadly virus that is choking the country to perdition. With the President taking the lead in at least tempering the insatiable greed of some legislators, I vow to do my share in helping him come up with a national budget that is truly responsive to the people’s clamor for sanity and a little timidity among the members of Congress in addressing the needs of their constituents.

With the exception of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps), eliminating all other forms of 'ayuda' and integrating them under the 4Ps in the National Expenditure Program all the way to the Enrolled Bill should be a good start. As I have consistently posited—AKAP, AICS, TUPAD, MAIFIP, and similar social services programs may be integrated under the 4Ps in compliance with RA 11310, which I intend to amend through a bill that I will file when I assume office as an elected Senator of the Republic.

It is time to give the Filipino people a chance to benefit more from the taxes that they pay out of their hard-earned money as an elected Senator of the Republic," Lacson said in a statement.