In order to dispel criticisms and lingering questions, the Senate will ensure that the entire budget process would be posted on the government’s website and made available for public scrutiny.

Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian, who now chairs the Senate Committee on Finance, pointed this out saying the Upper Chamber will task the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) to comply.

“There is a strong clamor for transparency. So our direction…we will undergo or experience a golden age of transparency and accountability,” Gatchalian said during a press conference at the Senate.

Gatchalian noted that during the entire budget process, only two documents are uploaded to the DBM and national government websites—the National Expenditure Program (NEP) and the General Appropriations Act (GAA).

But once they start, Gatchalian said he is committed to ensure that the budget process would be transparent starting with the drafting of the Budget Preparation (BP) 201 Form, the NEP, General Appropriations Bill (GAB) passed by the House, Senate committee report, the Senate’s third and final reading report, the bicameral conference committee report and until it the proposed budget becomes the final General Appropriations Act (GAA).

For fiscal year 2026, the Marcos administration is proposing a P6.793-trillion budget.

“If you are a public figure and you want to analyze the budget, you will only see step one and the final step. But you could not see the step by step process, because the uploading of documents is incomplete,” said Gatchalian.

“So, what we will do is require the DBM to go one step further. They have something called the Budget Preparation Form 201. All the requests from the agencies, given to the DBM, we will now request that this be uploaded to the website so that the people, including me, know what the agencies have requested,” he explained.

Moreover, both the Senate and the House of Representatives will be obligated to upload in their respective websites their own version of the budget bill, including the reconciled version of the national budget, so that the people can see what where the changes in the budget that were agreed upon before it is submitted to the President for his approval.