Nueva Ecija 1st district Rep. Mikaela Angela "Mika" Suansing is "confident" that there won't be a reenacted national budget for 2026 despite some last-minute hitches between House of Representatives members and senators involved in the Bicameral Conference Committee.

"Yes, I'm still very confident. I always say that as much as possible. We want to make sure we don't have a reenacted budget," Suansing told reporters in a chance interview Monday, Dec. 15 at the Philippine International Convention Center (PICC), the site of the bicam hearings on the P6.793-trillion General Appropriations Bill (GAB) for 2026.

"We will work doubly hard between now and Dec. 22, the initial [deadline for ratification of the GAB]," said the leader of the House contingent to the bicam.

The two chambers will only proceed to ratifying the finalized GAB once they iron out the disagreeing provisions of their respective budget measures.

"If need be, we may need to push a little bit. But the goal is for it not to cross into the next calendar year," said Suansing, chairperson of the House Committee on Appropriations.

"Ayaw natin ng reenacted budget. Hopefully, yun naman po tinitignan talaga natin (We don't want a reenacted budget. Hopefully, that’s the thing we're really looking at). We don't want it to come to that," she underscored.

Resorting to a reenacted budget for any given year is frowned upon, since it is tantamount to Congress failing to do one of its more crucial tasks--to legislate a fresh, updated outlay for the government.

But going the reenacted route will probably be more ruinous this time, since the last enacted budget--the current P6.326-trillion budget--is publicly viewed riddled with anomalous and "ghost" flood control projects.

And the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) flood control projects mess is the single biggest reaaon why Congress made the budget process more transparent this year, going as far as to livestream the traditionally closed-door bicam hearings.

In the words of Suansing's Senate counterpart, Committee on Finance Chairperson Senator Sherwin Gatchalian, the bicam is "deadlocked", resulting to the cancellation of the scheduled hearing Monday.

On Sunday, Dec. 14, during the second day of the bicam hearings, the discussions stalled after the solons took up DPWH Secretary Vince Dizon's request for the restoration of the deducted amounts from the projects in its proposed budget next year.

The dispute centers on the revised construction materials price data (CMPD) submitted by the DPWH to the Senate, which the upper chamber used as the basis for its cuts.

The House, however, said the Senate erred in applying the CMPD reductions across the board rather than on a project-specific basis. Dizon has said the CMPD should be applied per project, citing variations in construction material costs depending on location.