Hontiveros urges full transparency in 2025 budget bicam talks

Senate Deputy Minority Leader Risa Hontiveros on Tuesday called for "full transparency" in the bicameral conference committee meeting on the proposed 2025 national budget.

Hontiveros made the call at the first Senate finance committee briefing on the proposed P6.35 trillion budget for next year.

"The bicam should return to the original practice of a full face-to-face meeting and deliberation of all members of the bicam, even as certain issues may be left to the discretion of the chairs," Hontiveros said.

It has been a tradition in the bicameral conference meeting to create a small group which is composed of the chairmen of the Senate finance committee and the House appropriations committee and they will be the ones who reconcile the disagreeing provisions of the budget versions of the upper and lower houses.

The final version of the annual budget bill would then be endorsed by the small group for the rest of the bicameral conference committee members' approval.

Hontiveros also appealed to the Senate finance committee that the full bicameral conference committee report, including how it deviates from the Senate version of the proposed budget, be made available to all senators before it is endorsed to the plenary for its eventual ratification.

In raising these proposals, Hontiveros cited as example what happened to some projects with sure funding under the National Expenditure Program (NEP) as proposed by the Executive Department and under the Senate's version of the General Appropriations Bill (GAB), but were eventually lodged under "low priority"  unprogrammed appropriations in the final version of the budget.

According to Hontiveros, the low-priority unprogrammed funds ballooned from the original proposal of the Department of Budget and management of P282 billion to P731 billion.

"Isinantabi nga dito ang mga mahahalagang mungkahing budget ng Presidente. Ngayon po mistulang nire-raid ng DOF ang budget ng government corporations, kasama ang budget na para sa mga myembro ng PhilHealth at ang budget para sa Philippine Deposit Insurance Corporation, para  may karagdagang pondo para sa  priority programs na nilagay sa unprogrammed funds," Hontiveros said.

(Important budget proposals of the President were set aside. Now it seems that the DOF is raiding the budget of government corporations, including the budget for PhilHealth members and the budget for the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corporation, for additional funds for priority programs placed in unprogrammed funds.)

"Now, I hope we do not make this mistake again of de-prioritizing hundreds of billions of funds proposed by the President and already approved by both the House and the Senate," she added. —VAL, GMA Integrated News