President Marcos admitted that this year's national budget was "suboptimal" but he assured that they are in the process of making remedies for it.
"Well, I – perhaps the budget as was passed, you could describe it as suboptimal. But we are remedying that situation," Marcos said in an ambush interview in Leyte on Friday, Jan. 17.
He added that they are now trying to return the budget cuts made in the approved national budget by finding fund sources from savings.
"Well, let me put it simply, ang ginagawa natin ay yung mga masyadong nawala sa NEP, sa National Expenditure Program, na hindi na nabigyan ng pondo ay hinahanapan namin ng mga savings para maibalik ang mga pondong ‘yan. Kagaya sa edukasyon, kagaya sa health, kagaya sa --- kagaya ‘yan mga pabahay (what we are doing is: we are finding ways to fund those that were removed from the NEP, those that were not given budget like the education, health, and housing)," Marcos said.
"So, this is what we are doing. So, maybe the… As I said, the original budget can be described as suboptimal. We are working to make it optimal once again," he added.
Marcos has been holding private meetings with some of his Cabinet members to discuss the result of the agencies' budget review under the Fiscal Year 2025 General Appropriations Act (GAA) vis-à-vis the FY 2025 NEP.
One of the budget-related matters that have been discussed was the plan to reinstate the P400-million branding budget of the Department of Tourism (DOT).
Marcos also said he intends to recover funds for foreign-assisted projects of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH).
It can be recalled that Marcos has vetoed P194 billion worth of line items in the 2025 national budget, which caused a slight reduction of the budget to P6.326 trillion from the proposed P6.352 trillion.
The vetoed items included P26 billion under the DPWH and P168 billion unprogrammed projects—these were directly vetoed by the President, which means that the items were totally deleted from the national budget, including the allocations, making the 2025 GAA lower than the proposed version.