Senate Deputy Minority Leader Risa Hontiveros on Tuesday, August 13 called on lawmakers to observe full transparency in the upcoming deliberations on the proposed 2025 national budget. 

Hontiveros made the call during the Senate Committee on Finance’s first briefing on the proposed P6.35-trillion national budget for next year.

The senator said it is imperative for members of the bicameral conference committee on the General Appropriation Bill (GAB) to observe certain practices that was done in the past to ensure transparent deliberations on the budget.

“First, the bicam should return to the original practice of a full face-to-face meeting and deliberation of all members of the bicam, even as certain issues may be left to the discretion of the chairs,” Hontiveros said.

“Second, the full bicam report, including how it deviates from the Senate version of the GAB, should be made available to all senators before it is reported to plenary by the committee,” the senator said. 

Hontiveros recalled that during the deliberations on the 2024 national budget, a huge chunk of the budget in the National Expenditure Program (NEP) that was approved in the Senate was removed in the programmed appropriations. 

The amount, she pointed out, was set aside and moved to low priority and under the unprogrammed appropriations.

She cited as an example the P70-billion budget for flood control projects, including the budget for road right-of-way. 

“That's why we can't use the official development assistance (ODA) from ADB (Asian Development Bank), World Bank and JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency) right now. This is just one of the many chunks that bicam moved from programmed, to unprogrammed budgets,” Hontiveros said during the hearing. 

Because of this, the low-priority unprogrammed funds ballooned and reached P731 billion — from the Department of Budget and Management’s (DBM) P282-billion proposal — and the important budget proposals of the President were set aside.

“Ngayon po mistulang nire-raid ng DOF ang budget ng (And now the Department of Finance seems to have raided the budgets of) government corporations — kasama ang budget na para sa mga myembro ng PhilHealth at ang budget para sa Philippine Deposit Insurance Corporation (including the budget for PhilHealth members and the budget for PDIC) — para  may karagdagang pondo  para sa priority programs na nilagay sa unprogrammed funds (so there could be additional funds for priority programs that was relegated to unprogrammed funds),” she pointed out. 

Hontiveros appealed to the Senate finance panel, chaired by Sen. Grace Poe, to formalize her proposals so the Executive department would not deviate from the original proposal of the President and which have been approved by Congress.

“Now, I hope we do not make this mistake again of de-prioritizing hundreds of billions of funds proposed by the President and already approved by both the House and the Senate,” she said.

Currently, the bicameral conference committee creates a small group which is composed of the head of the Senate finance panel and the House appropriations committee and are the ones who reconcile the disagreeing provisions of the budget versions of the Senate and House of Representatives. 

Afterwards, the final version of the national budget bill would be endorsed by the small group for the rest of the bicam members' approval.