Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon on Wednesday, Nov. 10 proposed incentivizing the opening of face-to-face classes by giving state universities and colleges (SUCs) and public schools access to the P3.5-billion fund allocated for the retrofitting of education institutions under the proposed...
The Senate Finance Committee, chaired by Senator Sonny Angara, has endorsed for plenary approval Committee Report No. 332 which contains the P5.024-trillion national budget for 2022. This marks the start of lengthy plenary deliberations on the budgets of various government agencies and their...
Some senators on Monday, Nov. 8 expressed readiness to tackle the amendments to the proposed P5-trillion national budget. Senator Sonny Angara, who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, said the many of the committee report amendments are focused on boosting the government’s COVID-19 response,...
Presidential candidate Senator Christopher “Bong” Go on Friday, Nov. 5 urged President Duterte to give the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) authority to release excise tax proceeds on locally manufactured Virginia-type cigarettes for fiscal years 2018 and 2019 to local government units...
Senator Sherwin Gatchalian has urged the Department of Education (DepEd) to accelerate its hiring process and fill the remaining vacant teaching positions. Gatchalian noted that the DepEd is seeking an additional P2.58-billion in 2022 to hire 10,000 teachers, yet more than 30,000 teaching positions...
President Duterte’s economic managers approved the grant of fuel subsidies, giving public transportation sector the much-needed relief from skyrocketing pump prices. The inter-agency Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC) announced Monday, Oct. 25, that the government will shell-out P1...
The national government’s budget deficit breached the P1 trillion mark in the first three quarters of the year, but cuts in expenditures allowed the Duterte administration to keep the funding gap below the ceiling. The Bureau of the Treasury reported Monday, Oct. 25, that the national...
Senator Cynthia Villar on Friday could not help but lose her temper when she scrutinized the proposed P505-million budget of the National Tobacco Administration’s (NTA) budget for 2022. NTA, an agency under the jurisdiction of the Department of Agriculture (DA), had included in its proposed...
Senators are eyeing a special provision under the proposed 2022 General Appropriations Act (GAA) that would put an end to the practice of government agencies of transferring their funds to the Department of Budget and Management’s Procurement Service (DBM-PS) and the Philippine International...
Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque doesn't think Congress--in particular, the Senate--would allow a reenacted national budget to be signed for 2022, an election year. Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque (Photo from Harry Roque's Facebook) Roque was the sole guest of the Kapihan sa Manila Bay...
President Duterte has dared the Senate to make good of its supposed threats to slash the allocations of certain agencies amid the ongoing 2022 national budget hearings of the legislative chamber. JUST DO IT--President Duterte challenges the Senate to significantly reduce the budgets of certain...
Speaker Lord Allan Velasco has vowed to transmit to the Senate the proposed P5.024-trillion General Appropriations Act on October 27 to ensure the timely enactment of the measure. Speaker Lord Allan Velasco3 This after a five man committee in the Lower House consolidated the proposed amendments to...
