Livestreamed budget talks spark House debate

Administration lawmakers on Friday backed President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s directive to open to the public via livestream the bicameral conference committee hearings on the proposed P6.793-trillion 2026 national budget, ditching Congress’ longstanding practice of crafting the final draft of the spending bill in secret.

A minority leader, however, dismissed the move as a mere performative act to placate the public in the wake of alleged rampant corruption linked to flood control projects, the funds for which were supposedly allocated in the bicams in previous Congresses.

“It doesn’t automatically become transparent just because it’s livestreamed. There are a lot of things that happen behind the scenes and, essentially, what we see in the livestream is what they want us to see,” ACT Teachers Rep. Antonio Tinio said in an interview on Friday.

Deputy Speakers Jefferson Khonghun and Paolo Ortega, along with House Appropriations vice chair Zia Adiong, asserted that livestreaming the bicameral conference committee would promote transparency and public participation in the national budget process. They said it would help eliminate secrecy and prevent a repeat of the alleged manipulation that marred this year’s budget proceedings.

“The public has every right to see where their taxes go, and livestreaming the bicameral conference delivers on that promise,” their joint statement read.

Earlier this week, the President proposed to livestream the bicam deliberations for the 2026 budget and dismantle the so-called small committee to “encourage transparency.”

This indicates that the general public would have access to the entire bicam process, the last stage where amendments to the final version of the General Appropriations Bill are made, before the measure is transmitted to Malacañang for the President’s signature.

The bicam comprises selected members of the House and the Senate, tasked with reconciling the diverging provisions of their chamber’s respective versions of the bill.

Marcos said this would make no room for “questionable” last-minute insertions, and the proponents would be clearly identified.

Opening the bicam to the public was among the key reforms implemented by former House Speaker Martin Romualdez before he stepped down in early September. The chamber also abolished the small committee, deemed a secretive enclave for last-minute insertions.

The move follows the clamor of budget watchdogs who flagged the 2025 GAA for bloated unprogrammed appropriations (UA) intended to bankroll infrastructure projects. Allocations and subsidies for the education sector and state insurer PhilHealth, respectively, suffered deep cuts.

Despite the administration’s bold move to purge potential corruption from next year’s budget, Tinio cast doubt on the effort, pointing out that the public might not get full access to all the details, as seen in the House Budget Amendments Review Committee — the sub-panel that decided on the amendments to the House version of the bill.

“It is also livestreamed,” said Tinio, referring to the BARC. “But that doesn’t necessarily mean that the amendments have become readily accessible to the general public.”

He added, “Even I, as a member of the House, but not a member of the sub-committee, have a lot of work in order to understand what amendments were made in the third reading version of the bill that was passed.”

Further, Tinio expects that the amendments to the final version of the 2026 GAB will be made secretly, implying that the open deliberations will be merely a stage.

“Our fear is that what we will get is a performance with the amendments agreed upon behind the scenes,” he said. “We should be careful not to see it as the be-all and end-all to make the process transparent.”

Khonghun, Ortega and Adiong asserted that the open bicam would ensure that the 2026 budget is subject to rigorous scrutiny, and more importantly, “restores faith in our institutions.”

Tinio’s colleague in the minority bloc contended that livestreaming the bicam would be futile if the 2026 budget still contains a staggering P243-billion in “pork” or UA.

The UA, derided by critics as a conduit for corruption, is a standby fund 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, among others, are required.