Budget proposals for 2026 hit nearly P10T —DBM

Proposed budgets submitted by government agencies for 2026’s state expenditure plan have reached nearly P10 trillion and is expected to balloon to as much as P11 trillion —about P2 trillion more than the over P9 trillion in submissions for this year’s national budget.

Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman told GMA News Online that budget submissions of government agencies stood at “almost P10 [trillion] to date.”

However, Department of Budget and Management (DBM) Undersecretary Goddess Libiran said, in a Viber message, that per the Budget Preparation and Execution Group’s estimate overall budget submissions could hit P11 trillion.

“But that’s still an estimate since we’re in the process of consolidating all [budget] requests,” Libiran said.

Due to limited fiscal space, Pangandaman said that the DBM will carefully study the proposed budgets submitted by agencies.

Based on the 2022-2028 Medium Term Fiscal Framework, the state expenditure plan for 2026 is estimated at P6.793 trillion.

Last year, the DBM received as much as P9.2 trillion worth of budget proposals, but only approved P6.352 trillion as the National Expenditure Program (NEP) —which became the 2025 General Appropriations Act.

As early as December 27, 2024, the Budget Department called on government departments and agencies to prepare for their budget proposals for Fiscal Year 2026.

The Budget chief earlier said the early issuance of the Budget Call was done “so that there is enough time for the agencies to prepare their budget request to DBM.”

The budget submissions for Fiscal Year 2026 included both Tier 1 and Tier 2 proposals.

Tier 1 refers to recurring projects while Tier 2 are new or expanded proposals, according to Libiran.

Meanwhile, Pangandaman said next year’s NEP or proposed national budget will be submitted to Congress “hopefully two weeks after SONA (State of the Nation Address).”

President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr.‘s fourth SONA —his annual address to the nation to a joint session of House of Representatives and Senate— is on July 28, 2025.

Under the Constitution, the proposed national budget for the following year must be submitted to Congress no later than 30 days after the SONA

The Constitution also dictates that the state shall allocate the highest budgetary priority to the education sector. —AOL, GMA Integrated News