(MANILA BULLETIN)

Speaker Martin Romualdez gave his guarantee Wednesday, July 3 that the House of Representatives will make the passage of the proposed 2025 national budget its top priority for the rest of the year. 

Romualdez, leader leader of the 300-plus-strong House gave this statement a day after President Marcos approved the P6.325-trillion budget proposal for next year. 

“Aside from our commitment in approving the few remaining LEDAC (Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council) priority measures the House will again work doubly hard to pass the proposed P6.352-trillion 2025 General Appropriations Bill (GAB) before we go on break this end of September 2024,” Romualdez said. 

“We will then transmit the GAB to the Senate for its consideration,” he said. 

The Romualdez-led House possesses the power of the purse. As such, it gets first dibs on the budget measure. 

Romualdez said the House will ensure ample enough funding for education, agriculture, the modernization and welfare programs of the armed forces, infrastructure, and the legacy projects of President Marcos, among other priorities for budget allocation. 

He said education, health, agriculture, infrastructure, and defense have to be supported as well to make food products accessible and affordable and accelerate the country’s development in an environment of peace and stability. 

“We have to continue building roads, highways, ports, school buildings, climate change-proof structures, and similar infrastructure to maintain and expand economic growth. Progress has to reach the remotest communities,” stressed the Leyte 1st district congressman. 

The next session of the 19th Congress will open in the morning of July 22. In the afternoon, President Marcos will deliver his third State of the Nation Address (SONA) before a joint House-Senate session at the Batasang Pambansa Complex in Quezon City. 

The actuall budget deliberations is expected to begin in late August. 

Batasan was built during the administration of President Marcos’ father, the late President Ferdinand Marcos Sr.