Malacañang said Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano should take responsibility for the failure of his proposed P10,000 cash assistance instead of blaming President Marcos, insisting the proposal never reached the President because it had stalled in Congress before he took office.

Presidential Communications Office (PCO) Undersecretary Claire Castro said this after Cayetano claimed that Marcos turned down his proposal for a P10,000 pandemic cash assistance after winning the 2022 presidential election despite the government supposedly having enough funds to implement it.

In her press briefing, Castro said Cayetano's proposal failed to advance while he was still a member of the House of Representatives and urged the senator to acknowledge his own shortcomings rather than pinning the blame on others.

"Kung wala pa po siyang nagagawa, wala pong masasabing ni-reject ang Pangulo dahil wala po nga siyang nasisimulan (If nothing has been accomplished, no one can say the President rejected it because nothing had even started)," she said on Monday, July 20.

"Itong mga kahinaan ni Senator Alan Cayetano, kabagalan, at walang kakayahan sa pagtupad sa kaniyang pangako ay huwag niya pong ipahid sa ibang tao (Sen. Alan Cayetano should not pin his shortcomings, delays, and inability to fulfill his promise on other people)," she added.

Castro said the proposed P10,000 cash aid was first pushed while Cayetano was still in Congress and had already stalled before President Marcos assumed office on June 30, 2022.

She noted that Cayetano himself blamed then-Quezon City congressman Alfred Vargas when the proposal failed to gain traction in 2021 and later described the measure as merely a legislative proposal in a statement issued on June 30, 2022.

The Palace Press Officer also pointed out that the 2022 national budget, which did not include funding for the proposal, was enacted before President Marcos took office, making it impossible for him to have rejected the measure.

Asked whether responsibility should instead fall on the previous administration, Castro noted that the proposal and the 2022 national budget were both under former president Rodrigo Duterte's administration.

She, however, stopped short of directly blaming Duterte and instead maintained that Cayetano should have secured legislative approval for the measure before accusing President Marcos of rejecting it.

“Ang gumawa ng budget na iyan (2022 budget) ay panahon pa ni dating Pangulong Duterte, pero bakit hindi naisama iyong kaniyang proyekto o iyong kaniyang panukalang batas (The 2022 budget was created by the Duterte administration, but why was his proposal not included)?” Castro asked.

“Malamang ay hindi naniniwala sa kaniyang panukalang batas at mukhang kulang sa pag-aaral dahil ang hinihingi yata niya is P200 billion (Perhaps, they did not have faith in his proposal as it lacked study because I believe he was asking for P200 billion),” she added.

Castro doubled down, saying lawmakers may have found the estimated P200-billion cost difficult to accommodate alongside other government programs.

She said Cayetano should have convinced fellow lawmakers to support the measure instead of blaming the President after it failed to gain approval.

“Dapat siguro aralin niya pang mabuti iyan para ma-encourage niya iyong kapuwa niya mga mambabatas para sumang-ayon sa kaniya at maipasa ito, at hindi siya naninisi ng Pangulo (He should study it further so he can encourage his fellow lawmakers to agree with him, and not blame the President),” the Palace official said.