The Senate has reduced the House of Representatives’ version of the proposed budget of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) for next year by over P714-million.

Senator Imelda “Imee” Marcos disclosed this during the Senate plenary deliberations on the proposed 2024 budget of the DSWD on Thursday, November 16.

The Executive department has proposed a P209.668-billion budget for DSWD under the National Expenditure Program (NEP) for 2024, but the House increased the budget to P245.130-billion.

But while the Upper Chamber retained some of the augmentations introduced by the House, the Senate still condensed their counterpart’s version to P244.416-billion.

“There’s a discrepancy as clearly seen between the NEP, the Congressional version, as well as the Senate version,” Marcos said.

Responding to a query by Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel III’s on the changes, Marcos said there was significant reduction introduced in the budget for the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) and the Sustainable Livelihood Program (SLP).

Marcos explained that the Senate version took into account their assessment that some of the beneficiaries had graduated “or by natural circumstances became disqualified because they no longer have minor children.”

“So they were removed from the list and the exit strategy always is…they can avail of other training programs,” she said.