In less than an hour, a Senate finance subcommittee panel swiftly approved on Monday, Sept. 29, the Office of the Vice President's (OVP) proposed budget for 2026, amounting to P902.895 million, for plenary consideration.

This was after Senate Majority Leader Juan Miguel "Migz" Zubiri cited parliamentary courtesy.

"'Pagbisita po ng OVP at President (When the OVP and the President visit) we give them parliamentary courtesy and usually their budgets and in this case the budget of the Vice President is already a lean and mean budget," Zubiri said.

"Maybe we can afford them the courtesy that we can approve the budget of course after the manifestations. On the part of the leadership of the Senate, we'd like to extend that courtesy to the Office of the Vice President," he added.

The situation was different from the scenario last year, wherein Vice President Sara Duterte had a heated exchange with Senator Risa Hontiveros over the distribution of 'Isang Kaibigan' books, a children's book authored by Duterte that was allotted P10 million.

Meanwhile, in her presentation, Vice President Sara Duterte stated that in 2024, the OVP exceeded the obligation rate of 85 percent, with a budget utilization rate of 85.55 percent. A total of P1.783 billion was obligated, with a disbursement rate of 86.03 percent, or P1.53 billion.

"With these the OVP remains on-track in maintaining an obligation rate above 85 percent by year-end as has been achieved in prior years," she said.

In 2025, the OVP got a reduced budget of P733 million from its proposal of P2.037 billion. The House of Representatives slashed P1.3 billion from the OVP's proposed 2025 budget in its version of the 2025 General Appropriations Bill (GAB). The Senate retained this.

Despite this, Duterte stated that the OVP continued to implement its flagship programs, designed to provide the Filipino people with access to basic social services. As for its accomplishments, for the first semester out of its target of 1,047,935 beneficiaries, it attained 595,757 or 57 percent.

For 2026, Senator Sherwin Gatchalian said that the increase of the OVP budget is only 1.3 percent, which he called a bare basic budget.

In a press conference, Duterte said that she no longer asked for a bigger budget since "alam naman namin na hindi ibibigay yun (We already know that it won’t be given)."

In presenting the budget in the Senate, Duterte was accompanied by her team while she faced the House of Representatives alone.

"Madami kasi ang mga personnel ng OVP na mayroong some sort of anxiety 'pag pumupunta sila sa House of Representatives dahil sa mga nangyari noong nakaraang taon likely baka yun yung rason bakit ayaw nila ako samahan doon sa HOR (A lot of OVP personnel experience some sort of anxiety when hoing to the House of Represenatives because of what happened last year, likely that's the reason why they didn't accompany me)," Duterte said.

In his manifestation, Senator Christopher Lawrence "Bong" Go said that if it can be allowed, he would allow that a portion of his budget of his office be allotted to the Vice President.

Zubiri, Gatchalian as well as Senators Erwin Tulfo, Imee Marcos, Ronald "Bato" Dela Rosa and Robin Padilla, expressed support for the OVP's budget.

On the other hand, Senator Jinggoy Ejercito Estrada, who also expressed support for the OVP's budget, said that he wants to associate himself with Go's statement.

"Tutal mayroon naman nagsabi na isang senador na malaki insertion natin, edi bigay na natin sa OVP para maging working Vice President siya (Since a senator already said that our insertion is big, then let’s just give it to the OVP so the Vice President can be a working Vice President)," he added.