How did P1 billion worth of funds intended for hospitals and rural health units (RHUs) under the 2026 National Expenditure Program (NEP) get earmarked for "office beautification?"

That's exactly what Deputy Speaker Iloilo 1st district Rep. Janette Garin and her fellow party leaders in the House of Representatives wanted to know, as they justified their call to have the proposed P6.793-trillion outlay returned to the Department of Budget and Management (DBM).

In a press conference Wednesday afternoon, Sept. 3, Garin slammed such misallocation and said it undermined President Marcos' directive to prioritize essential services.

“Ang gusto ng Presidente, zero balance billing. Ang hinaing naman ng mga hospital, dagdagan ‘yung kanilang pondo kasi lumaki ang kailangan ng mga pasyente. Pero teka, paano nakalusot sa DBM na tila meron approximately isang bilyon na… instead na pondo para sa mga hospital at mga RHUs ay nilagay ng DOH pampaganda ng kanilang mga opisina?” Garin asked.

(What the President wants is zero balance billing. But hospitals are appealing for increased funding because patients’ needs have grown. But wait, how did it slip past the DBM that approximately P1 billion...which should have gone to hospitals and RHUs, was instead allocated by the DOH for beautifying their offices?)

In the same presser, Garin, a former Department of Health (DOH) secretary, echoed calls to toss the "flawed" 2026 NEP back to the DBM, since the House shouldn't be expected to fix someone else's error.

She said that questionable entries such as the one on office beautification undermine the President’s priorities and unfairly pin blame on Congress, especially the House of Representatives.

“In other words, napagbibintangan ang Kongreso sa mga kapalpakan na nangyayari sa budget (Congress is getting blamed for the failures in the budget),” Garin, a Lakas-Christian Muslim Democrats (Lakas-CMD) stalwart, pointed out.