At A Glance
- It took nearly half a day for the House Committee on Appropriations to terminate or complete its deliberation on the proposed 2024 budget of the Department of Agriculture (DA), an agency directly under the supervision of President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr.

President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. (Noel Pabalate/ MANILA BULLETIN)
It took nearly half a day for the House Committee on Appropriations to terminate or complete its deliberation on the proposed 2024 budget of the Department of Agriculture (DA), an agency directly under the supervision of President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr.
The termination of the appropriations panel's budget hearing on the DA came at 8 45 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 22
It began at around 9:30 a.m. earlier that day, giving the hearing a total length of 11 hours and 15 minutes.
Chaired by Ako Bicol Party-list Rep. Zaldy Co, the committee is currently on its second week of its deliberations on the P5.768-trillion National Expenditure Program (NEP) or national budget for 2024. Marathon hearings often mark this phase in the budget process.
Tuesday's DA hearing lasted longer than the longest budget hearing held last year. On Sept. 12, 2022, the appropriations panel discussed the budget of the Department of Health (DOH) for 10 hours and two minutes.
President Marcos is the concurrent DA secretary. Despite this, his absence during Tuesday's hearing was expected and excused by the House members.
Leading the DA contingent instead, and fielding questions from solons, was
Instead, it was Senior Undersecretary Domingo Panganiban who led the DA contingent and fielded questions from the solons. The lawmakers' queries were mostly about rice sufficiency and on what the agency had been doing to address steadily rising prices of the staple grain.
Agriculture has been identified as a priority sector in the 2024 an.