As the Senate starts deliberations on the 2027 national budget, Senate Minority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano urged the government’s economic team to show how much of the 2026 budget has been spent, where the funds went, and how much the country has borrowed.

In a letter to Senate Finance Committee chief Sen. Joseph Victor “JV” Ejercito, Cayetano raised these questions, saying the information would help senators study the proposed budget and ensure that the budget process is transparent and “faithful to the priorities they all promised to serve.”

“There is no measure this Congress passes each year that is more consequential and touches more Filipino lives than the General Appropriations Act (GAA),” Cayetano said in his letter.

“It is our values and priorities written in numbers. That is why we owe it to our people to get this budget right,” he emphasized.

Earlier, Ejercito kicked off the hearings on the P7.2-trillion national budget during the Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC) briefing on Thursday, August 27.

Prior to this, Cayetano, in his letter, asked the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) how much of the 2026 budget had been released, committed to projects, and actually paid out.

The senator also called on the DBM to provide each department’s and agency’s absorptive capacity — that is, how much each can realistically spend.

Cayetano also asked whether funds under the government’s Unified Package for Livelihoods, Industry, Food, and Transport (UPLIFT) framework had reached the intended initiatives, and requested details on their release and use.

The lawmaker also sought details on the national government’s total debt as of July 31, 2026, as well as the loans and bonds it took out or guaranteed over the past three years. He also asked which foreign loans and grants were still awaiting government approval.

Cayetano also requested a list of funds that had been transferred, realigned, or added to other programs since July 2023, including where the money came from and where it went.

He urged the agencies to submit their answers and supporting documents early to provide senators sufficient time to review them ahead of the agency budget hearings.

At the same time, the Minority Leader also assured the Senate Majority bloc of his “full and good faith cooperation” in crafting “the best possible budget for 2027.”

“(It must be) a budget that honors God, builds communities, and transforms the nation,” he said of the proposed 2027 national budget.