Navotas Rep. Toby Tiangco on Monday questioned why the House of Representatives does not undergo the same pre-plenary budget scrutiny as other government agencies, citing concerns over increases in its appropriations from amounts originally proposed in the National Expenditure Program (NEP).

“Is there a law that exempts the House of Representatives from presenting the budget to our colleagues before it goes into plenary?” Tiangco asked during the first hearing of the House Committee on Appropriations on the proposed 2027 national budget.

Tiangco said his concern stemmed from alleged insertions in previous budgets, which he claimed sometimes resulted in the House’s final allocation nearly doubling from the amount proposed in the NEP.

Citing the 2026 budget, Tiangco said the House was initially allocated P16 billion under the NEP, but the amount increased to P35 billion in the House-approved General Appropriations Bill.

While lawmakers are allowed to raise questions about the House budget during plenary deliberations, Tiangco argued that they cannot properly scrutinize expenditures without first seeing details on how funds are allocated and spent.

“Why don’t we put it through pre-plenary hearing because we should know how the budget of the House in 2025, how the budget in 2026 was being spent and what is the basis of the 2027 budget proposal,” he said.

Tiangco urged the House to subject its own budget to the same process required of other departments, saying doing so would demonstrate that the chamber has nothing to hide.

“I would like to request that, if there are no legal exemptions or constitutional provisions that exempt the House of Representatives, we must go through the same, exactly the same, process as other departments,” he said.

House Committee on Appropriations chairperson Mikaela Suansing said she could not immediately decide on Tiangco’s request and would refer the matter to the House leadership.

Suansing also noted that the House was not the only government institution excluded from pre-plenary hearings in previous budget deliberations.

Tiangco maintained that greater scrutiny was necessary because of questions surrounding the House’s expenditures and liquidation of funds.

Suansing stressed that she was not rejecting the proposal.

“Just to be very clear, we are not saying no. We are saying that this is not a decision that I can make right now, that is subject to the consideration of the House leadership,” she said.

Tiangco also proposed publishing on the House website the budget allocations for each congressional district to make the information more accessible to the public.