After six grueling days of discussions and uncertainties with the Department of Public Works and Highways' (DPWH) project funds ,the Bicameral Conference Committee (bicam) finished before dawn Thursday, Dec. 18 its consolidation of the conflicting provisions of the 2026 national budget.

The end finally came at 2.22 a.m. Thursday, when the House of Representatives and Senate contingents to the bicam declared the joint proceedings on the P6.793-trillion General Appropriations Bill (GAB) as adjourned.

Committee on Appropriations Chairperson Nueva Ecija 1st district Rep. Mikaela Angela "Mika" Suansing headed the House contingent, while Committee on Finance Chairperson Senator Sherwin Gatchalian led the panel from the Senate.

This year's budget bicam hearings were historic because usually closed-door meetings were livestreamed for the first time.

"Maraming, maraming salamat po sa inyong lahat (Thank you very much to everyone). Finally we have conducted, we have concluded our [bicam] meeting. Finally we have reconciled the disagreeing provisions, and finally we have a budget that we can be proud of and responsive to the Filipino people," Gatchalian said.

"Ako ay kampante na ang budget na ito ay tunay na tutugon sa mga pangangailangan po ng ating mga kababayan (I am confident that this budget will truly respond to the needs of our people)," he said.

"Higit sa lahat itong budget na ito ay corruption-free, at higit sa lahat wala nang overpriced [projects], at higit sa lahat, ito po ang budget na magiging, masasabi Kong standard for transparency," declared the senator from Valenzuela.

(Above all, this budget is corruption-free, and above all, there are no longer overpriced projects, and above all, this is the budget that will, I can say, set the standard for transparency.)

The bicam accomplished its task of finalizing the contents of the GAB between the House and Senate versions while trying to convince the public that there will never be a repeat of the DPWH flood control projects corruption scandal.

Bicam hearings in the past have taken twice as fast to complete, but speed cannot trump transparency given this issue that has triggered massive public outrage.

"Officially our bicam has run for six days. We started last Dec. 13, and now it is 2:20 in the morning on Dec. 18. So ganito po talaga kahaba yung diskusyon kapag talagang gusto natin siguraduhin...na gusto natin na malinis, transparent yung ating budget. Na ito po ay talagang tumutugon sa pangangailangan ng ating mga kababayan at talagang isa po itong budget na mapagkakatiwalaan ng bawat Pilipino," Suansing said.

(This is really how long the discussion gets when we truly want to make sure… that we want our budget to be clean and transparent. That it truly responds to the needs of our people and that it is indeed a budget every Filipino can trust.)

The bicam hearings were held at the Philippine International Convention Center (PICC) in Pasay City.

The goal is to have the GAB signed by the President before the end of the calendar year.

The GAB consolidation was largely stalled last Dec. 14 when the bicam members first took up the DPWH's budget.

During the hearing--and in unprededented fashion--DPWH Secretary Vince Dizon attended and personally appealed for the restoration of the deducted amounts from the projects in the agency's proposed 2026 budget as a result of the reductions in the Construction Materials Price Data (CMPD).

The DPWH has since admitted that it submitted insufficient initial data regarding the application of the updated CMPD.

"We acknowledge our oversight in providing only the Regional Adjustment Factors and fully agree that this limited information was inadequate for the Committee to accurately determine the specific, project-level adjustments for the nearly 10,000 affected projects," it said.

The DPWH ended up submitting additional, project-category-based data that incorporated key variables such as hauling distances and localized market behaviors, resulting in a more realistic basis for funding. The bicam waited on these computation as it tackled other conflicting provisions in the GAB.

It was 1:12 a.m. Thursday when the bicam approved the DPWH's allocation for next year. "Hay salamat (Thank goodness)," Gatchalian said afterward.

Suansing bared that around P300 billion was slashed from the original P881-billion allocation for the DPWH under the 2026 National Expenditure Program (NEP)--the precursor of the GAB. Even the much lower House GAB allocation for the agency was reduced.

"[There's] a reduction of around P90 billion from the HGAB. So we're roughly at P570 billion for DPWH. So that's a substantial decrease, almost P300-billion decrease from the original levels of P881 billion in the NEP," she said.

Suansing underscored during the bicam hearing that there would be no locally-funded flood control projects next year.

"It it very important to clear na wala na pong locally-funded flood control structures sa pondo ng DPWH. Tinanggal na po natin yun. Lahat po ng flood control projects na nagkakahalaga na P255 billion ay tinanggal na po natin.

Only foreign-assited projects (FAPs) involving the World Bank (WB), Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), and Korea worth P14.5 billion in total were left in the 2026 outlay.

"Yun po ay commitment po natin sa ating mga bilateral and multi-lateral partners (That is our commitment to our bilateral and multi-lateral partners)," Suansing said.