The House Committee on Appropriations could go as far as proposing budget cuts to agencies with low utilization rates to fund the chamber’s so-called pet project, the Ayuda para sa Kapos ang Kita Program (AKAP), its chair confirmed Sunday.

The House-backed AKAP did not receive an endorsed budget from President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in the 2026 National Expenditure Program (NEP), which the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) submitted to Congress last week for approval.

Citing congressional power to realign line items in the NEP, appropriations chair Rep. Mikaela Suansing said AKAP funding is still feasible, with money possibly sourced from ineffective programs or agencies with the lowest budget utilization rates.

She maintained that realigning funds to finance or insert other items in the NEP is a common practice that Congress has carried out over the years.

“It’s within the House’s prerogative to decide what it wants to do with the NEP. So, if the discussion comes to that, we’ll take a look at that,” Suansing said in an interview. “What we will be doing is a realignment; we will plan it out from which government agency we can pull the funds from.”

However, the President has said he would only sign items that had been budgeted under the submitted NEP.

The House, Suansing added, could also draw the funds from other aid programs, such as the Assistance to Individuals in Crisis Situations of the Department of Social Welfare and Development—the AKAP’s implementing agency.

AKAP, suspected by critics to be a conduit for pork barrel, was not “included in the priority programs” of the Marcos administration due to “limited fiscal space,” DBM Secretary Ameenah Pangandaman explained.

The initial proposed funding of the entire budget reached P10 trillion, but Pangandaman said P6.793 trillion was the maximum amount they could approve. This resulted in some programs, including AKAP, not receiving any allocation. Despite this, the Assistance to Individuals in Crisis Situations, another social program under the DSWD, was given funding.

Another factor contributing to the exclusion was that AKAP still has about P13 billion left over from its 2025 budget allocation.

AKAP, a brainchild of Speaker Martin Romualdez, provides one-time cash aid ranging from P3,000 to P5,000 to “near poor” households with total earnings below the minimum wage.

The program, however, has drawn backlash for abruptly obtaining P26.16 billion in this year’s General Appropriations Act despite not being explicitly listed in the NEP, raising suspicions of unlawful “budget insertions” by Congress.

Originally, the proposed funding for AKAP this year was set at P39.8 billion under the House-approved General Appropriations Bill. The Senate deleted the line item in its version, only to partially restore it at the last minute during the closed-door bicameral conference committee meeting.

In the 2024 GAA, AKAP also received substantial funding of P26.7 billion.

According to Suansing, several lawmakers are urging her to consider funding the AKAP in the 2026 budget, except for Romualdez.

“It is currently being discussed in Congress [because] we need a collective decision on what to do with AKAP. As I mentioned, there is still an ongoing discussion,” she said.

In his fourth State of the Nation Address in late July, Marcos warned he would not approve a proposed budget that deviates from the NEP, regardless of whether it results in a reenacted budget.

The 2025 GAA, initially set at P6.352 trillion, was trimmed to P6.326 trillion after Marcos vetoed P194 billion worth of line items deemed inconsistent with his administration’s priority programs, including P16.7 billion for flood control projects.

Suansing, however, assured that the House will abide by “legal and constitutional requirements” should the chamber decide to fund the AKAP.

The House will kick off marathon deliberations for the P6.793 trillion national budget starting today.