By DERCO ROSAL

The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) is confident that the proposed P6.352-trillion national budget for 2025 will be signed into law by the president before Christmas.

Budget Secretary Amenah F. Pangandaman said she is confident about the timely enactment of the General Appropriations Act (GAA) for next year, citing the swift approval by the House of Representatives and the Senate's commitment to meet the deadline.

“I expect that the budget will be passed/signed the same as last year—18, 19, 20 [of December this year]—before Christmas,” Pangandmaan told reporters.

If approved as proposed, the 2025 budget would represent a 10.1 percent increase over the current year's allocation and account for 22 percent of the country's gross domestic product.

The House of Representatives approved the 2025 proposed national budget on the third and final reading on Sept. 25, after President Marcos certified it as urgent on the same day.

The House largely retained the DBM's proposed allocations under the National Expenditure Plan.

Earlier, Senate President Francis Escudero assured that the upper chamber is committed to passing the budget on time.

Congress is currently in recess and will reconvene for plenary sessions on Nov. 4.

Meanwhile, Pangandaman also stated that the Marcos administration's economic team will convene for its first special meeting in early November to reassess macroeconomic assumptions and potentially raise the 2024 growth target from the current 6.0 to 7.0 percent range.

She mentioned that the Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC) will review projections for 2024, 2025, and extending to 2028, encompassing short, medium, and long-term outlooks.

By the end of October, "I believe the technical working group will be able to analyze the data," Pangandaman said.

"Assuming we have updated figures by year-end, we will review our growth rates during next month's meeting and in subsequent months," she added.

Meanwhile, Jonathan Ravelas, senior adviser at Reyes Tacandong & Co. and managing director of e-Management for Business and Marketing Services, projected that economic growth this year would likely slow to 5.8 to 6.0 percent due to stagnant consumption.

Ravelas explained that this deceleration would make it challenging to sustain the first half's 6.0 percent average in the third and fourth quarters. "People aren't feeling the impact of the drop in inflation."

He noted that consumers were still holding onto their cash, "waiting for clearer signs that inflation is truly picking up," leading to flat consumer spending in the third quarter.

However, Ravelas said that the 6.0 to 7.0 percent growth target for this year was achievable, supported by local factors like infrastructure spending and election-related activities.

By January 2025, the budget chief indicated that a reconvening would likely be necessary to submit the updated target to Congress, as the DBM's resolution on the medium-term fiscal framework (MTFF) had already been approved.