For Senate Minority Leader Aquilino "Koko" Pimentel III, legislators acted like they were part of the executive branch, criticizing the additional P450 billion unprogrammed funds in the final version of the General Appropriations Bill (GAB).

"Feeling executive branch na ang mga legislators po natin. Maraming inisyatibong naiisip. Ilalagay ngayon sa budget (Our legistlators feel like they're the executive branch. Thinking of so many initiatives. Then putting in the budget)," he said in an interview on CNN Philippines on Monday, Dec. 18.

"But you know, disregarding the constitutional rule that we can concur with the budget proposed by the President, we can reduce it but we cannot increase it," he added.

Pimentel mentioned that if the Congress wanted to disagree with the priorities of the president, then they should have changed some of the items in the proposal of the President, but not increase the amount.

Because when they increased the amount, he said that they are acting like the executive branch.

He explained that the structure of the budget is that there are programmed appropriations, automatic appropriations, and the unprogrammed appropriations. With the unprogrammed appropriations, he stated that the executive branch only asked for P281 billion but Congress increased it by P450 billion.

Pimentel also called for line-veto of the incremental increase of P450 billion that was pointed out by former senator Panfilo Lacson.

"The possible remedy is for the President to veto the excess so that the budget will come back to the levels as proposed by the President. But if the President does not do this, therefore we have a case. This can be questioned before the Supreme Court," he said.