The House of Representatives on Monday approved the proposed P6.793-trillion budget for 2026, retaining the P156-million cut to Vice President Sara Duterte’s office spending and allegedly excluding the P249-billion funding for the contentious unprogrammed appropriations (UA).

House Bill 4058 was passed on third and final reading with 287 affirmative votes, 12 against, and two abstentions—namely, Pwersa ng Pilipinong Pandagat Rep. Harold Duterte and Dasmariñas Rep. Kiko Barzaga.

The Marcos administration's 2026 proposed budget is 7.4 percent higher than this year’s P6.326 trillion and is expected to be the highest budget ever passed by Congress.

The House moved to slash the P889-million proposed budget of the OVP for next year after Duterte repeatedly snubbed the plenary debates on her office’s budget, leaving it only with P733 million—exactly the same as its current allocation.

This is the second consecutive year that the House has cut the OVP’s budget after Duterte’s ties with former ally President Marcos Jr. soured. The funding slash, however, is not yet final unless the Senate adopts the House’s recommendation.

Duterte drew a sharp rebuke from the minority after deliberately skipping the plenary deliberations three times until the House complied with her conditions—namely, to summon Marcos to appear in the House to defend his office’s budget, and to lift the immigration lookout bulletin orders against seven of her staff members through the House Committee on Good Government and Accountability’s report, which investigated her controversial confidential funds.

Mamamayang Liberal Rep. Leila de Lima, who moved to trim the OVP’s budget, slammed Duterte’s actions toward the House as “blatant disrespect.” She lauded the House appropriations panel for adopting her proposal, notwithstanding strong objections from Duterte allies.

UA to retain or no?

As for the highly criticized UA, derided by critics as a conduit for corruption, the House-approved budget bill excluded funding totaling a whopping P249 billion from the 2026 budget, according to House appropriations panel chair Mikaela Suansing.

She said the projects charged to the UA will only be funded if the government has extra revenue in 2026. Otherwise, the UA will not receive any allocation, as part of Congress’ effort to ensure that the standby funds will no longer be abused for corrupt practices.

“I want to emphasize that there are no flood control projects, no bridges, or no roads that can be charged to the unprogrammed appropriations for 2026,” Suansing said in her speech.

The UA has swelled unprecedentedly since 2023—Marcos’ first full year in office—reaching nearly P2 trillion, though P168.2 billion was reportedly vetoed in the 2025 General Appropriations Act.

The UA consists of standby funds that can only be tapped when the government collects more revenue than expected or when grants and foreign funds are available. Typically, the UA is invoked for emergencies or when infrastructure projects, social aid programs, and other initiatives are required.

The UA has been a point of contention among lawmakers, with the minority accusing it of being a channel for corruption, as made evident by the flood control scandal.

In 2023 and 2024, a staggering P141 billion was charged to the UA to finance flood control projects—now at the center of a corruption probe involving members of Congress, DPWH officials, and private contractors.

Amid mounting petitions from the opposition to scrap the UA, Suansing said the House majority had already compromised and removed P35 billion worth of infrastructure projects from the formerly Strengthening Assistance for Government Infrastructure and Social Programs (SAGIP), which will now be sourced to the UA.

Under the 2026 proposed budget, the UA was allocated P249.9 billion, with a big chunk going to support foreign-assisted projects (FAP) and SAGIP—P97.3 billion and P80.9 billion, respectively.

Minority solons, however, argued that there’s no use in defunding infrastructure from SAGIP if the allocation will be merely realigned to FAP, whose projects are mainly related to infrastructure.

Suansing, on the other hand, countered that defunding the FAP is not an option because “we cannot abandon our agreements at the international level." She pointed out that only social programs centered on education, health, and social pensions can be drawn from the UA.

Despite this, minority lawmakers such as De Lima, Edgar Erice, Chel Diokno, Peri Cendaña, and Antonio Tinio contended that scrapping the UA in the 2026 GAB is necessary to ensure that the following year’s budget would not be prone to corruption.

P255 billion for flood control realigned

Under the House-approved bill, the lion’s share of P255 billion intended to bankroll the corruption-plagued flood control projects was reallocated to education, health, and agriculture, receiving P56.6 billion, P90.7 billion, and P53.7 billion, respectively.

The realignment pushes the education sector’s budget from P1.22 trillion to P1.28 trillion—the “highest budget for education in history.”

The health sector's budget increased from P320.5 billion to P411.2 billion, with P60 billion adding to the P113 billion subsidies for state insurer PhilHealth, which received zero funding in this year’s budget.

Approximately P49.1 billion, meanwhile, will be added to the Department of Health’s Medical Assistance to Indigent and Financially Incapacitated Patients, to ensure that zero balance billing for government hospitals will materialize.

Meanwhile, the budget for agriculture bloated to P292.9 billion. Of this, P10 billion will assist 1.43 million farmers and fisherfolk.

The lion’s share of P74.5 billion will be set aside for the construction and rehabilitation of farm-to-market roads and irrigation infrastructure, while P30 billion will be earmarked for farm mechanization, machinery, and farm inputs under the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund.